


To Look On and Be Looked Upon

by DarkestCornerOfMyMind



Series: Snapshots of Passing Time [1]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Before Class E, F/M, Falling In Love, One-Sided Attraction, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Build, Slow Romance, Time Passing By
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2018-04-20 21:39:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4803134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkestCornerOfMyMind/pseuds/DarkestCornerOfMyMind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Nakamura noticed Akabane Karma was a month into 7th grade. Before she knew it, her eyes followed his every move and feared his every step. Before she knew it, they were friends in Class E. Before she knew it, her eyes started to drift towards somebody else. </p><p>A story spanning from the first years of Kunugigaoka Middle School to the High School in the future. </p><p>An Unusual Cliche Love Story exists as a prewritten sequel.</p><p>Chapter 7: Just when Nakamura begins to feel like her life is truly over, the moon explodes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Cat, A Wolf, and A Monster in Human Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Despite all of the "Before she knew it"'s in the summary, it's going to be a fairly slow fanfiction. 
> 
> Like I've said before, NakamuraxGakushuu is a pairing that I want to explore.

The first time Nakamura noticed Akabane Karma was month into 7th grade. He stood out among the first years, an attractive redhead with an attitude too big for his slender body. Among the first year girls, he was an existence that could rival Asano Gakushuu in popularity. Both of their grades were already among the highest in the school, and their looks made them hot topics of gossip.

 

Nakamura wasn’t in either of their classes during their first year, though she was in the same class as the other two known ikemen in her grade: Isogai Yuuma and Maehara Hiroto. While their grades were not as praiseworthy – well, Isogai was still among the top fifty. Maehara fell somewhere around the bottom – their friendly personalities and athletic abilities made up for their shortcomings. Isogai in particular was immediately nominated to be their male Class Representative and she often found Maehara with a different girl on his arm every few days.

 

Somehow as Asano Gakushuu’s reputation rose through active participation in school activities – the Student Council, helping out in clubs, tutoring his classmates – Akabane Karma faded into the background. While his grades were still high and he was acknowledged to be the one of the most physically attractive boys in the school, his truant activities started to overshadow his positive traits. Rumors reached the school’s ears, of bloodied fists and mocking words and near-insane laughter when he apparently nearly beat two ninth graders from another school to death with just his fists.

 

Up until that point, Nakamura had only ever seen Akabane but had never formally met him. Her girlfriends from her class were content to fawn over Isogai and Maehara, both of whom were more available and safe in comparison. The few guy friends she had turned pale at the mention of the violent redhead and often tried to change the subject. Curiosity overwhelmed her until she decided to visit class 1-D to confront Akabane – how bad could he be? Maybe he would be a kindred soul, a fellow troubled youth who sat on a higher pedestal than his classmates but longed to walk on the same ground as them. Maybe that was why, while he was as capable as Asano, he chose to not stand out and above, like her. While Nakamura’s own grades were still above average, she often skipped studying in favor of hanging out with the older reject students and felt her brain slowly turning to mush. She loved it. Maybe Akabane was the same, with him always getting into fights.

 

The door to the classroom was open, and in a sudden bout of shyness, she lingered there without calling for anyone. She acted as if she was supposed to just be casually standing there, half-clinging onto the door with her blue eyes scanning the classroom. She spotted Akabane up at the front at Oono-sensei’s desk and tried to discreetly shift herself into the classroom to get a closer look.

 

She had often seen him at school assemblies and such, but never in such close proximity. Her heart skipped a beat – damn, he really was handsome for a twelve-year-old – at the lazy yet mischievous look in his eyes. Akabane’s posture was relaxed and yet a noticeable charisma rolled off him in waves. It wasn’t like the strong, imperial kind of feeling that Asano gave off, nor was like the refreshing aura that Isogai tended to give out when he smiled.

 

It kind of reminded her of a cat.

 

Akabane had the air of someone who knew that he was better than everyone else, and even gloried in it. He had an elegant feel, similar to that of an aristocrat raised in a high-class environment, and it felt almost arrogant from the way he held himself. He was too different from her, who longed to be grounded and below. Disappointment welled up as she gave a heavy sigh and made to leave, casting one last glance at him as she went.

 

At that exact moment, Akabane happened to glance up from Oono-sensei’s desk and his light amber eyes chanced directly to meet hers for only a brief second.

 

It was like a lightning bolt had crashed down upon her, causing rippling shudders to travel through her nerves and heart. Her throat dried. Her feet turned to lead. Her forehead broke in to a cold sweat. And then he looked back down and she could breathe again, as she took shaky steps out from the classroom and dragged herself back to her classroom.

 

What was that? Was that love? Was that what love at first sight was supposed to be like? Did it always feel as if she were faced with a monster in a small room with no way to escape?

 

No, what she had felt was fear. Her first ever feelings of overwhelming fear. There had been something in his eyes which had entranced her and terrified her at the same time. Akabane’s eyes were not lazy, at least not like how they were at first. The moment their gazes had met, Nakamura had seen the laziness change to wariness, the wariness change to wildness, and the wildness suddenly become a great beast that threatened to swallow her whole. All within a single moment in time that was now suspended forever in her memory.

 

Akabane Karma was not a cat, she decided, but a monster in human skin.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Despite her fear, and despite how often she tried to convince herself that it was stupid and irrational, she couldn’t stop herself from trying to approach him again. The fear was a thrill, like the mystery candy she sometimes bought after school. She never knew what flavor she would get, but that made it all the more exciting. A small part of her consciousness called her a masochist. A small part of her heart agreed.

 

She made friends in Akabane’s class for the sole purpose of being able to come to Class 1-D. One of them was a manga-crazed girl with a bob cut like a kappa, and the other was a chubby, motherly girl with long hair pulled back into a low ponytail. One day as she spoke to them about random anime and classwork, she suddenly heard Akabane’s voice talking, louder and more excited than she ever could have thought possible.

 

“Eh?! He’s the director? Awesome!” Akabane had one hand resting against chair of a desk, the other gripping part of a cinema magazine held by another student. “And it’s being premiered today! Let’s go see it together, Shiota-kun!”

 

The owner of the magazine was a petite boy – maybe he was actually a girl, but he seemed to be a boy – with a pretty face and long blue hair down past his shoulders. He looked startled, scared even, with Akabane half-hovering over him in his seat, but then his eyes lit up and his voice was shy but not rejecting. “Sure,” it came out like a whisper. Nakamura watched incredulously as Akabane actually _beamed_ at the boy – Shiota-kun – and suddenly drew him into a lively conversation.

 

“I didn’t expect someone like you to like American comics, Shiota-kun. Is it your hobby?”

 

“N-No, it’s not… what about you, Akabane-kun? You don’t really seem like the type either…”

 

“I’m actually more of a fan of the director, but I’ve read the comics too! Are there any others that you like?”

 

“Well, um…”

 

“Boys can be so noisy,” Nakamura was brought back by the voice of her manga-loving ‘friend’. She almost told them to shut up out of frustration but then the motherly girl laughed with her and the moment was lost.

 

“I should get back to class,” she said instead. Both of her ‘friends’ waved goodbye as she stalked her way out of the class and nearly crashed into Akabane at the door.

 

“Sorry,” his voice was no longer chipper and bright. It was apathetic and insincere. “I wasn’t looking.”

 

“It’s okay,” Nakamura hated how strangled her voice sounded. “My bad.” She ran away, practically terrified, to her own classroom. Despite her desperate attempt to flee, she found herself thinking about his words, icy, chilling, and delicately covered with spidery lines of frost.

 

Suddenly she bumped into a second person who caught her around the middle as she lost her balance and nearly toppled over. Her arms swung crazily and she was pretty sure that her skirt had probably flown up. The strong arm around her waist held her tight and gently brought her back to her feet. How this person had managed to catch her without getting hit by her flailing fists was a mystery.

 

“Are you alright? Nakamura Rio-san,” purple eyes stared soullessly into hers and she shuddered at the emptiness in them. Just like Akabane’s, his words seemed to be so uninterested in her existence. “My bad, Asano-kun,” she mumbled and quickly dashed away from him like a rabbit from a wolf. She was aware of the cold eyes following her and then losing interest and dropping away.

 

So convinced she was that Asano had zero interest in her, that she didn’t even realize that he knew her name.

 

* * *

 

 

Afterwards she stopped trying to associate with Akabane altogether, though she did remain friends with Fuwa and Hara and even came to like them more now that she was less distracted from their conversation. Occasionally she would catch sight of Akabane with Shiota-kun hanging out in the gardens during lunch or fooling around (well, Akabane was) in the hallways. Once she saw them sharing an umbrella on a rainy day and the mischievous girl inside her had to refrain from wolf-whistling (because was Shiota-kun really a boy?).

 

Once and only once Shiota-kun spoke to her when she had helped him gather a spilled pile of music sheets onto the ground. “Thank you, Nakamura-san,” the small boy had said to her gratefully.

 

She was surprised that he knew her name.

 

“Shiota-kun right? What are the music sheets for? Are you in the Light Music Club?” she thought of her sort-of friend – more like acquaintance – Chiba-kun, who was in said club. He shared the same taste in music as her and as a result they usually had something polite to talk about when they met.

 

“No, Concert Club,” Shiota-kun gave an awkward laugh. “I’m not very good at playing instruments, but I thought if could have some time to study the music scores…”

 

“Oooh, I see. Work hard at it,” Nakamura smiled at him and Shiota-kun smiled back. He had a nice smile.

 

“Hey, Nagisa-kun!” Nakamura’s blood froze at the sound of Akabane’s voice. “I’m going to the convenience store. Do you want anything?”

 

“Eh?” Shiota-kun looked surprised. “But Karma-kun, fifth period is starting soon! There’s no time to go to the convenience store…”

 

“I’ll be back somewhere after sixth period.”

 

“You’re skipping again?!”

 

Nakamura was forgotten as Shiota-kun – no, apparently it was Nagisa-kun now – ran after Akabane in a futile attempt to stop him. Akabane merely laughed at him, though not unkindly, and gave him a hefty slap on his slender back before taking off. “See ya! I’ll get you some packaged sushi if they have any.”

 

“Eh, there’s no way the school would – you mean you’re going to the one outside of school?!”

 

“Well, duh.”

 

“Karma-kun!”

 

An astringent taste made itself known on the tip of Nakamura’s tongue as she watched them continuously jibe away down the hall. It tasted like disappointment, anger, and the added spice of jealousy.

 

* * *

 

 

Gakushuu’s eyes scanned the rankings of the first year students with a practiced eye. His perfect score of 500 was nothing new. There were a few others, however, that he was interested in. His gaze landed on Akabane’s name in 10th place, brows furrowed. He had heard the Disciplinary Committee continuously complain about the first year redhead to no end. Despite skipping classes, getting in fights, and snubbing the teachers, his grades stayed high and within a school like Kunugigaoka, grades were everything. Behavioral issues took a backseat.

 

Gakushuu scowled. After he became Student Council President (he was waiting for the current one, a third year, to get a nervous breakdown from facing his father all the time), he would rectify Akabane’s rebellious attitude and teach him respect.

 

Afterwards two other names caught his eye: (21st) Kataoka Megu and (33rd) Isogai Yuuma. Both were renowned throughout the school for their helpful, responsible personalities and natural charisma. Not to mention their apparent “ikemen-ness”. Gakushuu had to admit that he could see why Kataoka was so popular with her fellow girls. As for Isogai, he seemed to actually sparkle when he smiled, and it caused literally anybody to do anything for him. Though he seemed to be unaware of it, he, like Gakushuu himself, was another persona able to take over the world with little effort.

 

Perhaps he should consider inviting them to the Student Council once he took over.

 

“Asano-kun,” a smooth voice accompanied by a hand to his shoulder interrupted his thoughts. “Congrats on scoring first place. As expected, I suppose, of the Chairman’s son.” Several muscles in Gakushuu’s jaw tightened at the last two words. However, he somehow managed a polite smile and congratulated the speaker as well.

 

“You scored second place, Sakakibara. You matched me, 100 for 100 in Japanese.”

 

“That’s pointless in the long run, isn’t it?” Sakakibara’s eyes ran down the list. “Hmm, Tomoya Seo, Araki Teppei, Koyama Natsuhiko… oh, and Akabane Karma. That’s all I know who are in the Top 10, personally at least. Oh, Isogai-kun too.”

 

“You’re friends with Isogai?”

 

“Oh, no, I just invited him to a group date. I invited Akabane-kun too, but he refused,” ah, Gakushuu had heard of Sakakibara’s dating habits. Both he and Maehara Hiroto were infamous for their behavioral issues in a different way. Immediately he could predict the next question he would ask. “How about it? Want to join me? Akabane-kun and Isogai-kun both said no, so I’m short a handsome face.”

 

“I’ll think about it,” Gakushuu turned back to the rankings and resumed his search.

 

“Are you looking for a friend’s placement?” somehow this guy just refused to leave him alone. He was the pushy kind of friendly which was more often annoying than not. “Two pairs of eyes are better than one. Want some help?”

 

Gakushuu considered giving him a stare, the same kind of stare his father gave when he was confronted by a particularly disappointing student about to be sent to Class E. But no, it was too early. Gakushuu shouldn’t reveal the extent of his capabilities (read: intimidation) yet. He still had connections to make, lackeys’ loyalty to earn.

 

“Nakamura Rio.”

 

“Ooh, a girl? Your girlfriend?”

 

“Nothing like that. She’s just quite famous academically-speaking. She’s won quite a few rewards for her studies in elementary school,” Gakushuu’s eyes were in the 20’s. “But I haven’t found her name yet.”

 

“Hm, that’s odd. If that’s the case, she should be right up there with us,” how Gakushuu wanted to laugh at the lame attempt to make a pack mentality. Though perhaps it wouldn’t be bad to let him handle making a small, concentrated group of loyal followers. “Ah, she’s right over there.” Gakushuu turned in the direction that Sakakibara was pointing and his eyes alighted upon a head with dyed blonde hair.

 

“Ahh, I’m in the 60’s,” he heard her say distinctly. “Not bad, I guess.”

 

“But you actually did pretty well, Rio-chan!” some girl who wasn’t worth his interest pipped up to her. “I’m in trouble~ I’m in the 100’s already…”

 

“Whoa, that really is bad!” Nakamura laughed carelessly. “Ah, let’s compare answers later. Some of the questions were really impossible, right? People like Asano-kun are amazing for knowing all the answers…” She walked off with her friend, chattering, unaware of the growing displeasure behind her as Gakushuu gave a quiet “Tch,” of disapproval.

 

Though he wasn’t likely to admit it, he actually had some hopes for Nakamura Rio, same as he did for Kataoka Megu and Isogai Yuuma. However, he instantaneously was able to recognize what type of character Nakamura Rio was. She was a follower without ambition, and with a longing to fit in with those of lesser intelligence around her. She threw away her natural gifts for the sake of being ‘normal’ and acted stupid to be accepted.

 

Somewhere in his corroded heart he felt a small twinge of kinship as a memory of how cruel jealous elementary schoolers could be floated to his mind. The day afterward his father had immediately started his martial arts lessons with the order “Become strong.”

 

_Father was right. To stand above others causes self-persecution, and yet those who persecute you acknowledge you for a strength they themselves do not possess._

 

He turned away and closed his eyes.

 

_To simply dull your abilities because you believe the words of those who are below you… Foolish._

 

In his mental databanks, he took the existence of Nakamura Rio and smudged it until all was unrecognizable but her name, then filed it away with the rest of the ‘ordinary’ students of the school.

 

_As she has wished, now she is just one among many._

 

Gakushuu walked away, Sakakibara hot on his heels, and went back to silently formulating future plans of how to take over the school, just short one potential candidate.


	2. Fragile House of Cards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the world collapses on Nakamura, but she still manages to stay afloat with a little help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever get that feeling where you're divided in two? Nakamura does. A lot. And to a lesser extent, Karma and Gakushuu do too.
> 
> Out of the three, I think Karma has the best balance.

It wasn’t until the second semester midterms than everything started to collapse for her.

 

As her grades fell through, so did her relationship with her parents. Her mother coaxed, threatened, and wheedled, but Nakamura stubbornly refused to sit down at her desk and study like a good girl. Her father yelled at her after receiving a notice from the school of her delinquent behavior; graffiti on the school walls, skipping classes, once breaking a window with a baseball (that one was actually not her fault; an earnest bench player on the baseball team had been practicing his fastballs behind the school when one of them turned into a sharp curveball instead. She had willingly took the blame for him because she had seen something sincere in his expression; an ambition that she lacked).

 

Opposite to herself, Akabane seemed to have calmed down quite a bit in comparison. His fights became infrequent and his grades started to rise even higher than before. Though she tried hard to not approach him again, she did notice that he was becoming closer to Oono-sensei. Rumors flew, of course, of how a single teacher had managed to tame the wild beast of Kunugigaoka Middle. He still hung out with Nagisa-kun, of course, though on some days she noticed that in the small boy’s presence, his eyes would have _that_ wild and wary look in them.

 

Asano-kun had already become the Student Council President even though he was only a first year (though everyone agreed that it most likely through underhanded means) and his control over the first year student body was indisputable. Only Akabane seemed to be able to resist his authority, and yet their paths never seemed to truly cross. The closest they came was when the redhead continuously scored 100s in math to match him on every exam.

 

Sometimes she felt as if Asano-kun’s eyes were following her whenever they passed each other in the hallway by chance, but of course that was impossible. It was more likely Sakakibara who was often by his side. Stupid womanizer.

 

Her friends in class had started to drift away from her as the school brainwashed them into study-zombies. Suddenly all they talked about were their grades grades grades. The thing that she had been outcast for in her childhood still haunted her, but now from the opposite side of the spectrum. Suddenly the tests she had tamed and conquered were chasing her, teeth bared, and the worst part was that they weren’t sharp enough to give her an instant death.

 

Little by little, the red circles and checkmarks on her papers increased, except in English which was her saving grace from a complete hell. Her parents and teachers all pressured her to put her ‘passion’ for English into her other subjects. She tried to explain that she wasn’t passionate about any of the subjects, but of course they didn’t listen.

 

“Unless you clean up your act, you’ll be put into Class E during your third year,” her homeroom teacher warned. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about it.”

 

She had. That was something else her friends from class wouldn’t shut up about.

 

She watched as students all over the school, no matter what type they were, suddenly started to push themselves to their limits. Two students fainted in the middle of gym because of lack of sleep. A male student who used to skip every other day suddenly sequestered himself in the library and poured through the collections of outdated encyclopedias.

 

Usually the only ways to get rid of the stress of studying was through clubs, or at least that was the only explanation Nakamura could think of for why each club seemed to be top quality. Nagisa-kun’s Concert Club won an award for an excellent performance in a music competition. Chiba’s Light Music Club managed to release a single. The Baseball team made it to Koshien. The Student Council had an article displayed in six different magazines for their contribution to community service.

 

Nakamura herself was in the Ski Club, which was honestly a hangout for the reject first-year and second-year students who didn’t want to actively participate in anything, but also didn’t want to get razzed on to participate by the teachers. What they really did in the club was gossip, complain, and overall not focus on their studies. In its own way, it was still a good outlet for stress.

 

(And it was an easy way to stick students who would be troublemakers in a neat little box, which Nakamura suspected was why the Asano father and son duo allowed the club to exist.)

 

Akabane she knew was not in a club, but he never seemed to be stressed with his studies anyway, so he got away with it. There was one other student that she knew of – Terasaka or something like that whom she had only talked to once and felt a bit of empathy with – who also did not participate in club activities.

 

She never expected for it to be the cause of their first conversation.

 

* * *

 

One day, when her club members had decided to take an ‘outside excursion’ to the nearest fast food restaurant, she had encountered Akabane pulling out his shoes from his shoe locker at the entrance. Suddenly her friends and seniors disappeared, babbling excuses about forgetting things in the club room. She would have gone too, but her feet turned to mud and her silver tongue rusted in her mouth.

 

“Hey,” Akabane glanced at her standing dumbly on the step. Cold, blank eyes, almost like a dead man’s… “Oh, sorry. Am I in your way?” he was wearing that black cardigan, the one that he had started wearing near winter break (it was late January now).

 

“Uh… n-no,” she stammered out. God, why was she talking like that? Where did her usual glib tone and roguish sense of humor go? “That’s not my locker. I mean, you’re not standing in front of it. I mean…” she groaned and put her face in her hands. “Goddammit, _talk_!”

 

“… You or me?”

 

Horrified at herself for losing her composure, Nakamura’s head shot up, red in the face. She watched as Akabane’s eyebrows lifted…

 

And then he _chuckled_ and gave her a small smile. His eyes glimmered softly. “You’re kind of weird.”

 

“Weird?!” Nakamura’s embarrassment was overtaken by outrage. “What do you mean _weird_?!”

 

“Oh, that’s better. That kind of expression suits you more. Umm… Nakamura-san or something, right?”

 

“Huh?” she froze in place. “You know my name?”

 

“Yeah. I mean, you come to our classroom every other day to talk to Fuwa-san and Hara-san. It’s kind of hard not to notice you,” his eyes drifted over her freshly-dyed hair. “Blonde and all.”

 

“Look who’s talking?” Nakamura found herself laughing. “Like you stick out any less with that red hair of yours!”

 

“Hey, _mine’s_ natural.”

 

“Liar,” why did she think it was hard to talk to him? It was so easy. Speaking to him was no different than speaking to any polite acquaintance. “Hey, I’ve been wondering. Is Nagisa-kun’s hair natural too? No way right?” she laughed brightly before she realized that she was the only one. “Um, Akabane?”

 

A shadow seemed to cross over Akabane’s face. “Ah, sorry,” his voice was light. “I don’t know if Nagisa-kun’s hair is natural. It really doesn’t seem like it, right?” he pulled his schoolbag onto his shoulder and gave her another smile but without a trace of his earlier amusement.

 

She tried her hardest to repress a shudder.

 

“Um… you’re not going to wait for him today? Until after club activities are over?” why was she talking about Nagisa-kun still? Clearly she had hit a sore spot. Maybe they had a fight or something…

 

“Mmm, no, not today. I’ve got things to do at home,” Akabane jerked his head towards the doors. “I’ll be going now. Bye, Nakamura-san.”

 

“Bye,” she whispered as she watched him leave.

 

She stood there, her body completely rigid, up until her club members came back for her. The president anxiously patted her cheek, and then lightly slapped her when she didn’t respond. “Nakamura? Rio-chan? You in there?”

 

“Yeah,” she whispered.

 

There were two things she learned that day: Akabane smiled really easily even when he didn’t mean it, and he had the ability to convey _exactly_ when he was displeased.

 

* * *

 

 

The rest of the year passed by like a dream. Nakamura only really remembered snatches of what happened in the past few months – barely passing half of her finals, getting screamed at by her parents, her second-year seniors getting thrown in to Class E – and even those memories seemed… superficial. Silly. Annoying.

 

As a second-year she was already elected to become the new president of the Ski Club, though she found her member count woefully reduced. The majority of the second years had been sent to Class 3-E, and she barely saw them anymore. Her year-mates, previously her best friends and fellow troublemakers, started to severely focus on their studies.

 

“Didn’t you see the email Haruki-senpai sent out?” one of her friends said. Haruki-senpai was the previous president. “Class E is even _worse_ than the rumors! And the teacher isn’t even that good!” Nakamura vaguely remembered what the teacher – Yukimura-sensei? – looked like. She was a pretty lady who seemed a little too young and a little too optimistic for the job. “If you get stuck there, you get stuck there for the rest of the year!”

 

“I didn’t get the email.”

 

“Probably because you’re smart enough to be average without studying,” her friend turned his back on her. “Lucky you.”

 

The walls in her throat clamped down tight. Suddenly she was being closed in on both sides, one side discriminating her because she was smart enough to pass without studying, the other condemning her for not studying at all.

 

To study or not to study, that was the question.

 

* * *

 

 

Nowadays, school consisted of loneliness and accusing stares.

 

Her teachers lectured her over and over again of how she had the _potential_ , but they always said the same thing: “You end up in Class E!”

 

Class E, Class E, the whole damn school was a broken record. Teachers recited it like it was the only threat they knew. Students spoke of it as if it were the monster hiding under the bed.

 

Often, when she was feeling too pressured with no way to turn, Nakamura found solace on the roof of the school. The cool early spring air was soothing on the nerves and she found love in the art of cloud-watching. It was the one place in the whole building where she felt like she could avoid the eyes of others.

 

Though she was still president of the Ski Club, almost no one bothered to come anymore. Today in particular, nobody but her showed up at all. Feeling deserted and unhappy, she trudged her way up to the roof to at least watch others having fun instead.

 

What she didn’t expect was Akabane to be there too, fast asleep in the furthest right corner and shielded from the wind.

 

Feeling as if she had walked into something she shouldn’t have, Nakamura backed away slowly as if she had been confronted by a wild animal. How did she not see this coming? Of course someone like Akabane would already know about the solitude of the roof.

 

Would he be angry if she joined him, she wondered.

 

Mustering up her courage, she tiptoed towards him, trying to pretend that she was a cat, and halted just far away enough for the head of her shadow to touch his side. Sinking down on to the ground, she tucked her knees under her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. She tried hard not to stare, but it was hard when the wind kept ruffling his hair _just_ right. If she could just touch… God, his skin was so pale and clear. How did he manage that at this forsaken age of puberty?

 

Closing her eyes, she let the wind wash over them both and a small smile graced her lips. This wasn’t so bad…

 

“What do you want, Nakamura-san?”

 

Her eyes flew open and she practically skittered a few feet away. If Akabane saw her panties – light mint green with a leaf pattern – he had the courtesy to not mention it.

 

“You don’t have to freak out that badly,” he sat up and ran a hand through his hair. His eyes still looked a little bleary. “I’m a light sleeper, so I noticed you when you sat down next to me.”

 

Nakamura blushed and was glad that she had resisted the impulse to smooth his hair away from his face. “Sorry for waking you.”

 

“It’s cool,” Akabane yawned with his mouth wide open. Little sleepy tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. “So? Did you need something?”

 

“No, I…” she wondered how much she could say without sounding like she was whining. “I just wanted a place to… get away, I guess?” she wanted to slap herself in the face. Just how vague was _that_?

 

Akabane’s light amber eyes were impassive and he laid back down, hands crossed behind his head, both legs bent and one crossed over the other. “I see. Well, take your time. Nobody comes up here after school except for me.”

 

“Thanks, I guess,” unable to find a topic of conversation – he seemed fine with the silence anyways – Nakamura looked out over to the sports fields below and watched the baseball team yelling at each other to catch the ball.

 

“Why aren’t you in a club?” she blurted out. Damn, what was _wrong_ with her mouth every time she approached this guy? What? It was like it suddenly gained a mind of its own and was deadest on exposing her embarrassing thoughts.

 

Akabane opened one eye and glanced at her without turning his head. “Shouldn’t you be _in_ a club right now?”

 

“Ski Club,” Nakamura wondered if she looked like a bobble-head, what with the way she couldn’t stop jerking her chin up and down. “Barely anyone ever shows up to it though. Nobody came today, so I’m just having a breather.”

 

“Hm,” Akabane closed his one eye again and everything lapsed into silence. Maybe forcing the question wasn’t the best idea…

 

“I don’t bother with clubs.”

 

“Huh?” did she always sound so stupid?

 

“I said, I don’t bother with clubs,” Akabane opened both of his eyes and stared up at the sky. Small cumulous clouds floated by. “I’m no good with team sports and I’m not really into the arts either. There’s no point in joining a club without any interest.”

 

Oh, hello, that was interesting. She had expected him to say something along the lines of, ‘Clubs are stupid’ or ‘I don’t like crowding (and I’ll bite you to death)’. But to say that there was no point in joining without interest…

 

“What’s so funny?” he asked her. She didn’t even realize she was smiling.

 

“Sorry,” she grinned. “I just thought that you were unexpectedly serious.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean…”

 

She laughed out loud and suddenly she felt as if her breathing came easier. As they launched into a long conversation about random topics, from candy to politics, she barely noticed the sky turning dusky orange streaked with clouds of yellow.

 

All at once, their conversation was interrupted by the roof’s door creaking open.

 

“Karma-kun?”

 

Abruptly the spark in Akabane’s eyes died as his eyes drifted away from Nakamura’s face to Nagisa-kun’s. “Oh, Nagisa-kun. Is club over?”

 

“Yeah, um…” for some reason the smaller boy’s face was pink. “Did I interrupt something?”

 

“Nah,” Akabane stood up and said dully to her, “See you later, Nakamura-san.”

 

“Y-Yeah, see you…” she watched as the two of them left together. Nagisa-kun had a cheerful smile on his face. Akabane had a smile too, the kind that an inmate would give on death row. It just didn’t quite seem to reach his eyes.

 

The roof was a place where she could avoid others. She couldn’t help but wonder if Akabane was avoiding something too.

 

* * *

 

 

How dull.

 

Asano Gakushuu was only thirteen, and he already felt as if he were too old.

 

As his classmates talked about trivial gossip – celebrities, fashion, who Sakakibara and Maehara were dating – Gakushuu wondered what it would be like, for the millionth time since his sixth birthday, to be ‘normal’.

 

If he had grown up with a ‘normal’ father, perhaps he wouldn’t have been so bored.

 

Information was power, but what kind of power was it to know who this celebrity was dating, or what kind of style was ‘out’, or who Sakakibara was currently making out with in the hallway (he’d have to give him a warning, even if they were ‘friends’)? Why did such pointless chatter have _any_ power anyways?

 

Gakushuu’s father had empowered him from a young age with _real_ knowledge: the study of law, stocks, how to pay taxes, budgeting, martial arts, and the subtle art of manipulation, to name a few. Knowledge that was actually useful for the rest of his life. Why weren’t teenagers interested in discussing _that_?

 

For the first time in months he thought of Nakamura Rio and for the first time he thought that perhaps he could understand her. To be number one above all others his age was a singular existence. While he would never admit to loneliness, nor would he ever purposely lower his intelligence level (unless it produced some kind of benefit that he could use against his father) he did acknowledge that he wanted an intellectual peer, someone whom he could discuss more useful topics with. Not nonsense about what visual kei singer was sleeping with what bikini model. Sakakibara, who had originally been friendly towards him, started to drift away towards his classmates who spoke of lighter gossips.

 

He wondered if he should try talking to Akabane Karma, who was proficient in both frivolous and serious topics. He only knew this because one minute he would see Akabane talking about American movies with Shiota Nagisa, then the next the redhead would be with Oono-sensei discussing the political aspects of so-and-so bureaucrats. He would speak of them with such aptitude that even Oono-sensei looked a little lost.

 

Gakushuu immediately dismissed the idea. Their personalities were too different. Knowledge, although desirable, did not soften the blow of Akabane’s irritating attitude.

 

And Nakamura Rio…

 

Gakushuu shook his head and dismissed that idea as well.

 

He wondered if Sakakibara was still willing to talk to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was still in middle school to high school, I was an anime nerd and that's all I talked about. In a dominantly white school, that kind of topic didn't come up very often, and even when I found others who shared my interests, they shyly hid it away behind computer screens and treated it like it was something to hide in the closet. 
> 
> What interested you at that age? And does it still even matter?


	3. What You Want to Avoid is What You Want to Keep Near

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nakamura starts to realize what Akabane means to her. Gakushuu notices. But he doesn't particularly care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really hard to write (hence the delay) because for some reason it was really hard to keep everyone in character this chapter, especially Gakushuu. He just kept saying things he wouldn't normally say and did things he wouldn't normally do so that when I pulled away and re-read my work I was like "Who the hell are you even?"
> 
> Ahhh, the joys of writing.

By her second year midterms, Nakamura was already sure that she would be headed to Class E. Her grades had reached an all time low, minus English which remained resolutely around 85 or more points.

 

But only one good subject was not enough to keep her afloat.

 

Fuwa and Hara still talked to her, though now all three of them were in different classes now. They, like all the other students in the school, still tried to focus on their grades, but unlike the others they had yet to completely lose their souls to them. Nakamura was relieved. She thought that she and Akabane were the only ones unconcerned.

 

Speaking of Akabane…

 

If there was one good thing this semester, it was that she was no longer afraid of him.

 

After that conversation on the roof, suddenly she felt comfortable with him. He was no longer some sort of mysterious figure that creeped along the shadows of her mind. Instead he was someone that she could talk to about pointless things without feeling degraded. Akabane seemed perfectly fine with discussing trivial things despite his high intellect. Still, they weren’t what she would call friends; they didn’t eat lunch together or even talk every day. Her relationship with him was similar to her relationship with Chiba-kun: “a favorite acquaintance”.

 

Why did she ever think of him as abnormal? He was an ordinary teenager in the end after all. Another guy with likes and dislikes, quirks, and a rather dry sense of humor.

 

And, she noticed, what seemed to be growing dislike of Nagisa-kun.

 

“Are you two having a fight or something?” she asked Akabane one day in the hallway as Nagisa-kun passed them both by without a single glance or reaction from the redhead. The smaller blue-haired boy’s corners of his mouth pulled downwards and his head hung low as he trudged on.

 

“… Nah,” Akabane gave her a single-word answer in a toneless voice, though his face looked quite chipper in comparison. “Lately we’re just not as interested in hanging out together. It happens every once in a while, right?”

 

It does, she thinks, though some woman’s intuition in her suspected him of lying.

 

Nagisa-kun had other people than Akabane. She knew this because she had seen him chatting easily with others or hanging out with his club mates after school. And yet whenever his eyes glanced over to his redhead friend – slowly it was changing from ‘friend’ to ‘classmate’ – something melancholy would swim to the surface of his blue eyes. On the very rare occasions that Akabane invited him out again, the melancholy would change to eagerness and relief, as if everything were right with the world.

 

But then the next day he would be cast aside and the usual clearness of his eyes would flicker and corrode.

 

To Nakamura it almost looked like a boyfriend jerking his girlfriend around. And she told him so.

 

“Eh? Well, Nagisa-kun does look a lot like a girl…” Akabane drifted off and swept his eyes around the school yard. Nakamura had bumped into him at the vending machines. She followed his gaze and found Nagisa-kun on the other side of the soccer fields, eating snacks with Tanaka, Yamada, and that one boy from the baseball team whose name she could never remember even though she had helped him out once.

 

“Would you go out with him if he were a girl? He’d be a cutie, wouldn’t he?” Nakamura teased him. She meant for the question to be lighthearted. She didn’t expect his frown to turn contemplative and for his eyes to haze over as if he were staring at something she couldn’t see.

 

“Mmm… no, yeah… no.”

 

“No?”

 

“No,” Akabane stabbed the sharp end of his straw into his strawberry milk a little too viciously while squeezing it too tight and some of it spilled out on his hands. “Not if I value my life,” he lapped it up from his fingers like a kitten, and a pouty one at that. “There’s something a little too… _different_ about Nagisa-kun…”

 

Nakamura wasn’t listening. Her eyes were transfixed on his tongue sliding over his own fingers and something in her knees went weak.

 

“Nakamura-san? Nakamura? You listening?” Akabane waved his hand – not the one he had been licking, thankfully – in front of her face. “Hey.”

 

“Sorry,” her mouth moved automatically. “Can you repeat that?”

 

“Nah, it’s nothing important,” Akabane gave his strawberry milk a final slurp until it caved in on itself in defeat. “I’m going back to class. See you, Nakamura-san.”

 

“Bye,” she said and her hand waved goodbye to him on its own. He didn’t bother sparing her a second glance as he walked away.

 

Nakamura, alone, crouched over on the ground in front of the vending machines and cussed herself and her hormones out until the bell rang.

 

* * *

 

Nakamura started to avoid Akabane a little more after that.

 

She did it in a way that was much more subtle compared to how Akabane was ignoring Nagisa-kun. Every time their eyes met, Nakamura would smile and wave at him, but she wouldn’t approach him unless there was a crowd around them. Even then their conversations were brief and no longer as in depth. She never tried to ‘escape’ from him too early and always waited for the appropriate time to part ways.

 

If Akabane ever noticed any changes whatsoever, he ignored them completely.

 

In between her conversations with Akabane, her social life began to plummet along with her grades. Suddenly she was alone no matter where she looked. Her close friends had become Asano groupies and grade zombies, and her parents no longer tried scolding her. Even Fuwa and Hara had drifted away. It was like she had become invisible to everyone _except_ Akabane. And occasionally Nagisa-kun.

 

What a dilemma, she thought to herself. The one person she wanted to avoid more than anything was her one anchor into human interaction.

 

But why _did_ she want to avoid him anyway?

 

Now that she had established the fact that he was an ordinary human being and not a demon in disguise, she had lost all of her fear towards him. The feelings that she had now which were keeping her away were more… _embarrassed_ than anything.

 

The embarrassment, okay, she could understand where that had come from. Her somewhat perverted mind had gone into overdrive when she had saw Akabane kitten-licking his fingers. But so what? It’s not like it was the first time a random sexual thought had gone through her head. She was thirteen, going on to fourteen in August. She knew how puberty worked. Her flattish chest was slowly becoming less flat, and with any luck she would have the same C cups as her mother.

 

So if she already understood that such random thoughts were a part of growing up, why did she still have such a hard time with looking Akabane in the eye?

 

* * *

 

_To the Parents of Nakamura Rio-san_

_While Nakamura-san has proven to have potential and ability far beyond her age, her appalling attitude towards studies and authority has given us no choice but to place her on the early waitlist for next year’s Class E._

_Unless she displays a complete change in attitude, as well as an increase in her grades, she will unfortunately be placed in Class E next year._

_Sincerely,_

_Asano Gakushuu_

_Principal of Kunugigaoka Middle School._

 

* * *

 

Nakamura tried her hardest to read her math textbook and yet all she could see were tears.

 

Not her own tears, of course, but the tears of her mother as she silently read the notice that had been sent home about her dear daughter. Of how her daughter was a hopeless case doomed for failure unless she pulled herself together.

 

… Crap, maybe those were her own tears after all.

 

She swiped her sleeve across the page where the droplets had stained the page and only succeeded in making holes the size of a cigarette burn. The bright sun outside the window on her right seemed to mock her misery. She sunk further into her seat and wondered if it was possible for the tiles below her to give way and swallow her up.

 

“Ooh, this is rare.”

 

Why couldn’t she have gotten swallowed up?

 

“You too,” she accused Akabane as he plopped down in the seat across from her without waiting for permission. She wondered if she would have given it to him. “You’re never here. And you’re not allowed to eat in the library.”

 

“Since when did you care whether or not I follow the rules? Keep it up and you’ll turn into another Isogai.”

 

“As if,” Nakamura leaned over the table and playfully swatted at his right hand which was holding a pizza bun. Akabane stuck his tongue out at her and shifted back, out of her reach. His teeth – his canines were so pointy, why were they so pointy? – sank into the crisp bread crust with a crunch and the mouthwatering smell of tomato sauce mixed with pepperoni and mozzarella cheese oozed into the room.

 

“Don’t blame me if they catch you by the smell.”

 

“I can just hop out of this window.”

 

“We’re on the second floor!”

 

“So?”

 

Nakamura rolled her eyes and went back to her textbook. Her notebook was filled with doodles, chicken scratches, and what looked to be a detailed plan of how to replace Yano-sensei’s morning tea with dyed saltwater. She hated the stupid quadratic equations. What was the goddamn _point_?

 

“That’s wrong.”

 

“What?”

 

Akabane reached out and tapped her notebook page where she had given a halfhearted attempt to solve a problem.

 

“ _x 2 \+ x – 4 = 0_ doesn’t factor into anything so you need to use the quadratic formula to find a solution. You got that much, but your answer is off. Here,” the redhead got up and walked around the table to lean over her left shoulder as he picked up a pencil and explained the problem to her. “The formula is negative (b) plus or minus the square root of (b) 2 minus 4(a)(c) over 2(a). We don’t know what _x_ is so substitute it with 1. So if we just write it out like this, then we get..." she could feel the warmth radiating off of his cheek. His very, very smooth cheek that oh-so-slightly brushed against her's... 

 

“So the answer is negative 1 plus or minus the square root of 17 over 2. Did you get all that?” Akabane turned to give her a slightly mocking smile, only to pause as he realized that her face was tomato red. “What’s the matter? Are you sick or something?”

 

“Just of math,” Nakamura managed to whisper. She cleared her throat and tried not to think of how close he was to her face and of how she could feel his breath on her ear and neck. “Nobody likes a showoff, you know.”

 

Akabane grinned at her with his sharp canines and Nakamura could _hear_ her heart hammering in her chest. “What’s the point of knowing how to do something if you can’t tell others about it?” he was still holding the goddamn pizza bun and Nakamura realized that he had written out the entire problem with his left hand (no wonder the numbers looked kind of sloppy).

 

“You’re ambidexterous?”

 

“Not really. It was just easier. Look,” Akabane switched his food into his left hand and picked up the pencil with his right. “If I try to write like this then I’ll keep bumping against your shoulder. And you’re up against the window on your right, so either way I would have kept bumping into something,” his arm through his black cardigan sleeve was warm against her skin. Nakamura felt her face flaring up again and she gave a little scream inside her head. It didn’t help that Akabane was still jostling her shoulder with his elbow just for the heck of it. “See? See?”

 

“Stop that!” she pushed him away and tried to smile. “Thanks for the lesson though.”

 

“Why _are_ you even trying? I thought you hated studying,” the redheaded bane of her existence pulled away from her and went back to his claimed seat. She wasn’t feeling goosebumps rising where he had touched her or anything. Not at all.

 

“… I got a notice that says I’m going to drop into Class E if I don’t get my grades up,” a different kind of heat – the kind that made her want to disappear – crawled up to her face. “Unlike you I’m pretty stupid, so I’m trying to study.”

 

“Is Class E that bad? I don’t think that it’s as terrible as the rumors say,” Akabane munched on the bun, making little _nom nom_ sounds as he ate. “Sounds blown out of proportion to me.”

 

“You’re just saying that because there’s not a chance in hell that _you’ll_ end up there,” the words came out of her mouth more spiteful than intended. It seemed to have stung Akabane into silence, which she filled with the sound of pencil scribbling on paper. She kept her head bent over the desk.

 

A few more minutes passed like that until she murmured an apology in a low voice. “Sorry.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Akabane popped the rest of the bread into his mouth and licked at his fingers. Nakamura kept her head down as to not have her head fill with naughty thoughts again. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

 

“Okay,” she wondered if she had actually _offended_ the great troll Akabane Karma. He was the kind of guy who filtered insults as compliments through his brain. His chair scraped against the ground as he stood up and made to leave.

 

“Oh right, here,” she heard a rustling sound as Akabane shuffled through his pockets. “You can eat this.”

 

She looked up to see a squashed pizza bun wrapped in wax paper sitting in front of her. “For me?”

 

“I bought two but I guess I only needed to eat one. It’s not that great anyway, so you can have it,” as if she were in a dream, Nakamura watched as Akabane strode towards her and felt his hand on the crown of her head. It just didn’t seem _real_. “Try your best with your studies.”

 

He left and Nakamura stared at the bun as if it were going to explode. Her face burned and her heart clawed its way up her throat.

 

Suddenly why she couldn’t look at him in the eye all made _sense_.

 

_Oh_ , she thought to herself. _Oh, shit._

 

_I **like** him. _

 

And with that revelation, Nakamura thumped her red face down into her notebook and tried her hardest not to scream.

 

* * *

 

The two voices furiously whisper-arguing over his head was starting to give Gakushuu a headache.

 

What was he even doing here, anyway? He could have just gone home to study, but no, he had decided to actually go with his ‘friends’ – Sakakibara, Seo, Araki, and Natsuhiko – to study in the library when he had realized that he needed a reference book he didn’t have.

 

“I’ll be back,” he had said to them. “The reference books are on the second floor.”

 

“Okay, Asano-kun. We’ll keep your seat warm for you,” Sakakibara – now tenatively Ren – gave Gakushuu a quick smile and went back to his hissing argument with Araki over how the Japanese language was used in journalism.

 

He arrived early enough to overhear – he wasn’t eavesdropping, an Asano wouldn’t do such a ridiculous thing – Akabane teaching Nakamura the proper way to solve a quadratic equation problem, and he had been there early enough to see Nakamura’s face go bright red at the close quarters conversation from between the shelves.

 

_Oh_ , he thought. _Oh._

 

_She **likes**_ _him._

 

The idea that _anyone_ could like Akabane was baffling enough (though Gakushuu would admit that the redhead _could be_ considered physically attractive), but for Nakamura Rio to like him…

 

Had she really fallen so far?

 

_Another disappointment_ , was what his father would say about students who had potential but refused to explore it. At the very least, Nakamura could have aimed for someone with a better personality.

 

The reference book he needed was on the top shelf. He scowled at the fact that he was still not tall enough to reach it and looked around for a footstool.

 

(He could have jumped, of course, but as Student Council President he had to set an example for the scant amount of students within visible range.)

 

A female student was using it a few yards away. She nearly fell off when she noticed who was approaching her. Gakushuu gave her that charming Asano-smile and she handed it to him before running away in the opposite direction.

 

As he stepped up to get the book, for some reason he had a sudden craving for pizza.

 

* * *

 

Ren and Araki were still arguing when he got back. “Japanese compared to many other Western languages is a twisted language in the first place! Of course journalists are going to use that to their advantage and throw some words around!”

 

“They _shouldn’t_! Journalism should be about putting down cold hard facts and getting the truth out!”

 

“The truth doesn’t always _sell_!”

 

“Proper information should have priority over profits!”

 

“What do you think, Asano-kun?” Ren turned to the strawberry blonde as he just barely sat down.

 

“I agree with Araki. Information is the most powerful kind of currency,” Araki sneered in his victory. Ren scowled. “But the Japanese language is indeed ‘twisted’ so to speak, so Ren has a point too,” Ren primly lifted up his chin and Araki clicked his tongue. Being objective between subordinates was important for a leader.

 

Studying was completed in another hour, though the actual time took an hour and a half because Ren and Araki started a kicking fight under the table and it took a while to get it sorted out (namely Asano pinning down their ankles with his heels and applying pressure until they were visibly wincing). Asano had his bag packed away before he remembered the reference book.

 

“Should we eat out today?” Ren was asking. “It’s a nice day outside, maybe we could find a good café somewhere and sit for a while.”

 

“I know a good Italian place that opened up near the bookstore,” Seo added in. “They have really good gelato.”

 

“Sounds good.”

 

“Sure.”

 

“You guys go on without me. I have to put this book back,” Gakushuu nodded towards him and walked off before they could even reply. The remaining four all looked at each other and shrugged.

 

“Typical King of the World, huh?” Natsuhiko commented, miffed. "Just because he said to, he thinks we'll do it without a thought."

 

“No, no,” Ren said gently. “That’s just how Asano-kun is.”

 

Gakushuu, who could still hear them thanks to library acoustics, somehow felt more embarrassed about Ren protecting him than Natsuhiko complaining about him.

 

* * *

 

Nakamura was still sitting in a daze next to the window, the pizza bun having long gone cold in front of her. She poked at it with her pencil and wondered if it would disappear if she tried to pick it up.

 

“No food in the library,” came a low voice a little too close to her from behind. Yelping in surprise, she turned to see the person she least expected.

 

“Asano…! You scared me!” she accused him as she slowly sank back down into her seat. She had jumped in her panic. “Creeping up on a young girl from behind isn’t attractive, you know.”

 

“Like I care,” Asano pointed an imposing finger at the innocent bun on the table. “No food in the library. Also, it’s going to close soon. Hurry up and leave. And if you want to keep the bun, make sure the librarian doesn’t see you holding it on your way out,” Asano’s voice was crisp and clear in his instructions, like a drill sergeant who absolutely expected his orders to be obeyed. Somehow it was ridiculously irritating.

 

“Aww, you’re letting me break the rules? How sweet of you, Asano-kun~” she kept her own voice light and playful. The best thing to do now was to play polite – or at least, play flattery. “I take it back. You must be so very popular with girls. Even I would be head over heels,” she was babbling now as she packed her things away. The pizza bun was perched precariously on top of her books in hope that it wouldn’t get crushed.

 

“Considering you seem to have a crush on Akabane, I doubt it.”

 

Nakamura missed a step and her knee hit the ground. She gaped at him as she tried to not cry out of pain. The exasperated hand held out for her to take was ignored (for some reason, despite being a young evil lord, he was still a gentleman) in favor of looking like a speared goldfish.

 

“Wha – ”

 

“It’s very obvious.”

 

She stared at him. It looked like his arm was getting tired from holding it out so she tentatively took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

 

“You’re not going to… tell anyone, are you?” she asked him hesitantly. The eye-roll he gave her was almost insulting.

 

“Like that would benefit me. You don’t really have much to give me anyway.”

 

Okay no, yeah, _that_ was insulting. Even so, she held her tongue. No point in starting a fight with someone who knew very personal information about her (and could possibly spread it if she pissed him off).

 

“Besides, I’m not one to spread pointless gossip,” Asano shrugged his shoulders and his feet were already turned in direction of the door. “Have a good rest of the day, Nakamura-san.”

 

“Uh, right, bye,” Nakamura said, awkwardly spitting out words. “What the hell is _with_ him?” she pondered aloud as soon as he was out of earshot.

 

“I can hear you.”

 

Oops. She _thought_ he was out of earshot.

 

* * *

 

Gakushuu was pleasantly surprised to find his ‘friends’ waiting for him by the school gate. “Asano-kun, you’re a bit slow. Did something happen?” Ren asked him, brushing back his hair with a rather fabulous sweep of the hand.

 

“Not in particular,” the student president shrugged. “So where are we going? The Italian place Seo mentioned?”

 

“Yeah. Are you in the mood for pasta?”

 

Gakushuu thought of the sudden craving he had experienced randomly in the library (come to think of it, Akabane had probably been eating in the library the first time, how did he miss that?) and voiced it aloud without meaning to. “Pizza.”

 

“Oh, their pizza isn’t bad either. Their tomato sauce is pretty good.”

 

Seo, Araki, and Natsuhiko all started chatting about what genuine Italian foods they had tried in their lives. Ren walked a little off to the side to fuss with his hair. As for Gakushuu, somehow the talk of tomato sauce made him think of the red in Akabane’s hair.

 

“I don’t understand what girls see in guys sometimes…”

 

Yet again, he murmured it aloud without meaning to (he was doing that a lot lately, which wasn’t good. It was a sign of him getting comfortable around people).

 

“OOOOO!” Ren suddenly perked up and threw an arm around Gakushuu’s shoulders. “What is it, Asano-kun? Girl trouble? Want some advice?” he spoke in a low tone. “It’s okay, the others didn’t hear, they’re talking about the tiramisu at the restaurant. C’mon, Asano-kun! You can tell me anything!”

 

Gakushuu scoffed at the idea of telling Ren anything. “It’s nothing, Ren, really. Just a thought is all.”

 

“Oh,” though he looked disappointed, he also looked quite hopeful. “Well, if you ever have that kind of trouble, I’d be glad to talk with you about it. We’re friends after all, right?”

 

Though Gakushuu was used to pawns referring to themselves as ‘friends’, the plastic smile on his face changed to be a little more genuine.

 

“Mm, yeah. I guess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to write about a character not caring about a relationship when you know they're going to care later on. 
> 
> Or at least, they're supposed to. We'll see.


	4. A Moment Nobody Knew About

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not like Gakushuu and Karma had never talked. It's just they don't seen the point in bringing it up.

Gakushuu’s first memorable meeting with Akabane Karma actually takes place outside of school grounds during Winter Break, inside a bookstore that Gakushuu frequents because it has the widest array of reference books and study supplements. The gray sky shows hints of incoming snow and Gakushuu wraps his scarf around his neck tighter like a noose as he fights the urge to sneeze. He hates the cold, even though his birthday is coming in January. No amount of celebration or congratulations or presents from hopeless fans and ass-kissers could take the nip and bite of merciless breezes away.

 

It’s a relief when he reaches the store. Ordinarily he would have refused to go outside in such weather, but there’s a huge Winter Sale today and neither the maid nor the chauffer at home were educated enough to choose the right books. As he unbundles himself, melted snow dripping slowly on the tiled floor, he spots the back of a familiar redhead dressed in a striped white sweater and khaki pants by the Graphic Novels section, pouring over American Sonic Ninja comics.

 

He wants to avoid him – he’s not in the mood for fake civility and smiles today – but for whatever reason the display table holding the books he wants is right next to the comic shelves and well within Akabane’s line of sight if he happens to look up. Gakushuu is not fond of the idea of sneaking around like a terrified mouse.

 

“Asano-san,” comes an obnoxiously loud voice that probably could reach up to the second floor if only a fraction louder. It’s the same store employee who fawns over him every time he comes. He was usually helpful, but today he was annoying. “Shall I take your coat for you?”

 

Gakushuu contemplates sending him a glare capable of killing him (or at least his confidence) as he can see Akabane’s shoulders visibly twitch from the other side of the room. Well, there was no point in trying to avoid him now, he supposes. He tosses his coat and scarf and gloves to the unsuspecting store employee without looking and strides on with confident steps towards his destination.

 

It’s almost a little insulting of how Akabane purposefully keeps his head down as he walks by to the table covered in study supplements for sale. He takes a little longer than usual in choosing his math reference book, checking each page for creases and imperfections. This one has a faint water stain on the back cover. That one has clearly been picked up and put down multiple times. That one tucked haphazardly underneath a stack of English dictionaries has a fresh coffee stain on it. He snorts and puts it aside to give to the annoying employee to dispose of later. At last Gakushuu decides on the most visually perfect book in the pile and tucks it under his arm.

 

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” at last the lazy, drawling voice murmurs to him from his right side. Akabane stands there with two issues of Sonic Ninja tucked under his arm. A glance at the covers tells Gakushuu that they’re entirely in English. No wonder they were unwrapped.*

 

“I wouldn’t what?” he challenges. Akabane’s lazy stance annoys him to no end, what with how his shoulders slump a little forward and his hands forever tucked into his pockets. Coupled with his attractive face and casual voice it makes him seem much more harmless than he actually is, as if his own body was a metaphor for wasted potential.

 

“Buy that book. It’s got too much technical stuff in it,” Akabane taps the gaudy orange and blue cover of the book that Gakushuu is holding. The Student Council President feels tempted to slap him in the face with it. Akabane reaches towards the table himself and pulls out a thinner, much less impressive-looking book with a pure white cover and standard printed kanji on it. “This one’s better. It has better practice problems and a step-by-step process of how each one works in the back. The explanations are simple and straightforward too.”

 

Gakushuu stares at the book and tries to discern whether or not it was booby-trapped. “Hm. I didn’t peg you as a study material connoisseur.”

 

“Why can’t you just say ‘expert’ like everyone else?” Akabane adds the book to the two under his arm. “Also, it’s cheaper than the one you’re holding, and they’re both on sale. It’s a good deal.”

 

“I didn’t realize you cared so much about my wallet,” Gakushuu rolls his eyes. “But I’ve always used the books from his particular series, so I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

 

“It’s your money,” Akabane shrugs and moves on without a second glance. Gakushuu’s eyes follow him and watch as he bumps shoulders with a girl around their age. “Oh, sorry,” he hears her say distinctly. “Nah, it was my bad,” Akabane accepts and returns the apology with surprising ease. The girl and her friend whisper excitedly between themselves as the redhead walks away. Something akin to pity welled up in his heart for those girls. They had no idea.

 

“Oh, Karma-kun,” he hears a woman’s voice say. It’s a different store employee, a young and pretty brunette girl who looks old enough to be in college. Gakushuu takes one look at her face and demeanor and decides that if she had gone to a college, it wasn’t a very good one. “You’re here again today?”

 

“I’ve got nothing better to do, and it’s boring alone at home,” Akabane stops to talk to this woman as if it were something he did every day. “Besides, you finally restocked the issues of Sonic Ninja that I’ve been wanting.”

 

“Your parents still haven’t come home? Even though Christmas is coming up?” Gakushuu recognizes the faint tightening of the jaw on Akabane’s face, as well as the polite smile he keeps plastered on his face. He had seen it on his own expression in the mirror too many times. “That’s too bad.”

 

“Mm, yeah, too bad,” Akabane’s words causes the temperature to drop by at least 10 degrees and even the female employee shivers. “I should probably go home and start dinner. Could you ring me up while I get my coat, please?”

 

He shoves the books into her arms and walks off towards the coatracks on the side near the door and pulls out a black jacket that clearly cost more than a book store employee’s annual salary, with gray gloves tucked into the pockets and a blue tube scarf around the hanger’s neck. The woman employee scrambles around to get the books scanned, wrapped, and slips them into the trademark bookstore bag. Akabane crosses over the floor with the airiness of a stray cat and takes the bag without even looking her in the eye. “Put it on my tab,” he says and she gives him a terrified bow.

 

Intrigued, Gakushuu raises an eyebrow at the whole scene. Even _he_ didn’t have a tab. Could bookstores even do that? As he approaches the cashier himself, the annoying male employee barrels out of the staff room with perfect timing and practically boots the woman out of the way. “Please, allow me to get your coat!” Gakushuu wonders what this store would have been like if his father had not come in with him the very first time.

 

Akabane is standing at the door, pulling on his coat and gloves and looping the tube scarf around his neck. Without a word, Gakushuu does the same. Outside is a storm of sleet. Gakushuu tries hard to not let the disgust show on his face. He fails miserably as Akabane glances over at him. “You don’t like the cold?”

 

“I don’t think anybody would like this kind of weather,” Gakushuu contemplates calling the chauffer. Of course it would be a terrible inconvenience if the poor man accidentally swerved off the road and killed himself in an accident. He would have to depend on his father to drive then, and the idea was terrifying enough.

 

Akabane pulls out an umbrella from his pocket as well, a small, black, foldable type hardly bigger than Gakushuu’s hands. “I see~ Well, I don’t mind it as much, so see you at school,” Akabane opens the door and lets in a destructively frigid breeze. “Have a good holiday.”

 

Well, what was he supposed to say to that? “You too. Happy Birthday.”

 

Apparently it wasn’t what Akabane expected him to say because he freezes where he stands, one foot in the air and out the door. Gakushuu wishes that he had kept his mouth shut so that Akabane could have just walked out and shut the damn door. The wind was starting to scatter some of the books too.

 

“… How did you know?”

 

“An educated guess,” Gakushuu replies, edging away from the entryway to stand on the side (and away from the breeze) instead. The sight of Akabane’s jaw tightening is still fresh in his mind because of its familiarity. “It’s annoying to have your birthday come in second place to an overly commercialized holiday.”

 

Golden eyes meet violet and some part of Gakushuu feels that Akabane is actually seeing him for the first time. “… You too, huh?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Let me guess. January 1st?”

 

“Mm-hm.”

 

For the first time, Gakushuu hears what Akabane’s laugh sounds like without the usual malice or derision. It’s a surprisingly pure and charming sound with a hint of childishness. Somehow it fits and that in itself is terrifying. “No wonder. It suits you, Number 1-kun.”

 

“It’s Asano.”

 

“Yes yes, Asano-kun then,” Akabane sticks out his tongue and Gakushuu is amazed that it doesn’t freeze in the cold. “I’ll see you later. And Happy Birthday to you too.”

 

“Yeah, bye,” Gakushuu says to empty air. Akabane is quick to enter and quick to exit. It’s just his nature to be flighty.

 

The sleet shows no sign of stopping. Gakushuu calls his chauffer and the poor man is there within half an hour and looks ten years older. “Young Master, you seem to be in a good mood,” the man says in a timid voice as he watches Gakushuu in the rear-view mirror. “Did something good happen today?”

 

Gakushuu looks down at the books in his lap. One has a flashy orange and blue cover. The other one is completely white. “Nothing happened,” he says and rests his chin on his palm. “I just got a good deal, that’s all.”

 

Despite Akabane’s personality, his intelligence and surprisingly mature mindset (if you could call it that) were the real deal. As much as it pains him to say it, he could see many similarities between himself and the redhead. While Akabane’s tongue was flippant, the rest of him was… bearable.

 

Maybe, _maybe_ after school started again, they could talk a little more. Just maybe.

 

* * *

 

Shortly after Winter Break in early February, Gakushuu receives word that Akabane had been suspended from school and will start their third year in Class E. Bitter, he throws away the white book into an incinerator and curses himself for ever thinking that maybe, _maybe_ , they could have been friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *In Japan, most comics/manga are wrapped in plastic so that customers can't just take them and read them in the store. They have to buy them. From personal experience though, they never wrap the stuff that's in a foreign language. 
> 
> I'd like to think that while they have a huge rivalry in school, Gakushuu and Karma are actually quite civil to each other if they meet in a casual setting.


	5. To be a Genius and to be a Commoner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Nakamura's second year of high school comes near its close, strange events come left and right. A devil's fall into hell. A playboy's surprisingly composed behavior. And a certain genius's offer to walk back home together. 
> 
> The truth is hard to hear. It's even harder when you still deny it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It takes a certain kind of stubbornness to forcefully degrade yourself. First you need to swallow your pride, your common sense, your knowledge that "I'm better than this", and then that same stubbornness is what keeps you from looking back at your glory days and realizing that what you've done is not a benefit. It's a prelude to your own destruction. 
> 
> Unfortunately, it's only at the very beginning of the destruction that one becomes enlightened. Specifically about being doomed.

It’s the first week of February when Nakamura finds Nagisa-kun sticking his head out of a third-floor window.

 

“Uh, Nagisa-kun, that’s dangerous you know?” Nakamura moves to pull his head back inside. “What are you doing? Is there something happening?”

 

Nagisa-kun’s silence is all she needs to stick her head out the window and stare down at a certain redhead handing some third year asses back to themselves. “He’s in a fight again, huh…” Nakamura spots a third student watching the spectacle with an expression that can only be called grateful horror. “So what happened? Did he run out of lunch money or something?”

 

“Karma-kun’s not like that,” Nagisa-kun’s voice is quiet but strong. “He rarely picks the fights himself. Usually others pick a fight with him and he retaliates, that’s all. This time though…” Nagisa-kun’s hands clench into fists, nails digging deep into the flesh and shaking. “They were picking on somebody from Class E.”

 

Nakamura silently mouths an _oh_ as she watches Akabane hold up one of the unconscious bullies with a single hand against the wall. “Are you alright, senpai?” his voice floats upwards towards Nakamura and Nagisa-kun. It’s delightfully sadistic and gentle. The type of voice a beckoning demon would have.

 

“Y-Yes, thank you. Um… Akabane-kun, right?”

 

“Hmm? You know of me? I’m flattered, senpai. Were they trying to take your wallet?” Nakamura watches as Akabane bends down to pick up what looks like a student ID card from the ground. “Class E… as in ‘that’ Class E?” unexpectedly to both Nakamura and the rescued student, Akabane’s voice and expression were sincerely sympathetic. “How terrible to get picked on for something as trivial as this,” he hands the card back with an encouraging smile; not quite Isogai-level, but enough to make someone feel warm inside. “Well, hang in there.”

 

The Class E student looks both bewildered and grateful all at once. “Y-You don’t look down on me? You’re one of the best students in the school, aren’t you? Like Asano Gakushuu…”

 

“Oi oi, don’t compare me to that wet blanket,” Karma laughs, though Nakamura thinks it’s only because she knows him well enough that she could tell he’s actually offended. “I wouldn’t treat a senior like that just because of your current status. If I come after you, it’s usually because you started it.”

 

“Well that sounds like an underlying threat if I’ve ever heard one,” Nakamura murmurs to herself. She’s leaning against the window with her hand cupping her face and a small smile. “Well, that doesn’t change that he’s actually a pretty nice guy.”

 

“He is, isn’t he?” Nakamura nearly jumps out of her skin because she had forgotten Nagisa was still standing there. He had the uncanny habit of seemingly fading out from other people’s sight from time to time. She wonders if it’s a trait of light blue-haired teenagers. Nagisa is smiling and looking very much like a proud parent. “He’s nice, even if he’s insincere about it sometimes.”

 

Nakamura catches a bittersweet sound somewhere in those words but she holds her tongue. A girl should never interfere in a fight between guys. Woe to the guy who tries to interfere in a fight between girls.

 

“Oh, he’s looking this way,” Nakamura says as she looks back down to realize that Akabane is starting up at her. The Class E student is nowhere in sight. Nakamura waves with a grin. Akabane smiles slightly at her and her stomach flips. “You should wave too, Nagisa-kun… Nagisa-kun?”

 

She turns around only to find that Nagisa-kun, this time, had truly disappeared. She looks back down to realize that Akabane had suddenly disappeared too.

 

 _All the people around me disappear_ , she thinks to herself. _I wonder if somebody somewhere is trying to tell me something._

 

Somewhere in the distance, an ambulance wails its way towards the school.

 

* * *

 

Later that day Nakamura finds Akabane storming out of Oono-sensei’s office. His hands are shoved roughly into his pockets and eyes flashing the same wild look she had seen during their first year. He stands there to breathe, once, twice, thrice, before fixing a devil’s smile on his face. He _really_ looks as if he doesn’t want to talk, and makes it clear from his hunched shoulders and angry back as he walks away from her without even seeing her. She probably shouldn’t say anything.

 

“Akabane? You okay?”

 

Wow. Good job, mouth. Wow. _Why_?

 

Akabane slowly turns his head towards her and part of her strongly believes that his head would twist 180 degrees and his eyes would stare into her soul until she burns alive. She’s not sure if it’s courage or outright recklessness that stops her from running far away.

“Nakamura…” Akabane’s voice is deeper than usual, almost like a growl. “Sorry, but I’m not in a good mood right now.”

 

He turns away from her and keeps walking, his steps quick and hard against the floor. She glances to the side and realizes that Oono-sensei’s sliding door was still open just a crack.

 

She peeks inside and devastation meets her eyes. The office is trashed to the extreme, with broken glass and flipped desk and chairs and papers all over the floor. Nakamura recognizes the cowering student in the corner, with his arm in a sling and bandages all over where Akabane had probably slammed his fists and feet into for bullying the Class E student. Oono-sensei looks frazzled, rightfully so, as he tries to adjust his shirt and smooth his hair back down.

 

“O-Oono-senseeeeei,” whimpers the terrified student. “W-What if he comes after me? He might ambush me on the way to school or back from my house…!”

 

“Don’t worry,” Oono-sensei is quick to reassure though not quick enough to fix his harried expression. “I’ll do something about it. Perhaps I can convince the Chairman to place that brat under house arrest…”

 

‘That brat’? Weren’t Oono-sensei and Akabane supposed to be close? Since when had they degraded into name calling?

 

Nakamura tiptoes away and tries to make sense of things in her head. It’s been a long time since she had put serious thinking into anything and the wheels in her brain feel rusty and slow. Akabane had been told off for hurting a student? But he had done that already several times with fools who couldn’t stand his high and mighty attitude on top of his lazy behavior and good grades. Oono-sensei hadn’t scolded him then… but then a Class E student was involved in the situation too. A lot of things changed when it came to Class E. Including people’s judgements and perspectives.

 

 _Class E_.

 

A lightning bolt seemed to strike her, one of realization.

 

And, she would have to admit later on, a smaller bolt of relief as well. Misery loves company.

 

* * *

 

The next day the entire school is abuzz with the day’s hottest gossip: Akabane Karma had been suspended and would start his senior year in Class E. The word spreads like wildfire and suddenly students are working even harder to keep out of Class E. With a genuine devil there the mention of the very place sounds even more like hell.

 

In Nakamura’s case, however, she’s relieved that at least she will not be alone.

 

The list of those who would fall into Class E had not yet been announced; their names would be listed on the biggest announcement board in the school as a means of public humiliation and social execution. There were others, Nakamura is sure, who had already been determined to go to Class E. But nobody was owning up to it yet. Honestly, if they would just reveal themselves, Nakamura would go right up to them and befriend them then and there. It’s terrible to become an outcast, but it’s even worse when alone. She understood that from the isolation she had received from her ‘friends’ – too smart to be a delinquent, too dumb for this school.

 

Maybe it’s just the pressure heaping up onto the second years, but Nakamura notes that Akabane falling into Class E is not the only strange thing.

 

Like how this afternoon, directly after class, she catches Maehara coming down the hall alone – which is a surprise because he’s almost always accompanied by either his best friend Isogai or by a girl on his arm – looking rather disgruntled. “Hey, Nakamura-san,” Maehara greets her with half of his usual charm, which was also strange. “Wanna go hang out after class? My treat and all.”

 

“Aren’t you dating Kawaguchi Mio-san from Class 2-C?” Nakamura asks, a bit amused. It’s funny how the other girls seem to be blinded by this guy. Maybe it was because Nakamura preferred men with a more unique appeal. Maehara shrugs his shoulders and looks down at his scuffed indoor shoes.

 

“She broke up with me, cause I’m too stupid and I fell into Class E.”

 

 _Oh_.

 

Nakamura doesn’t know what else to do but blurt, “Me too.”

 

“ _You_?” Maehara’s disbelief stings and she feels as if she were back in the Ski Club with her friend turning his back on her with the words: _“ **Probably because you’re smart enough to be average without studying. Good for you.”**_

 

“Yeah, me,” she snaps back, a little more defensively aggressive than she would usually be. “What about it?”

 

“Oh, well… it’s kind of unexpected since you always manage to at least stay within the top 100…” Maehara scratches his head. Nakamura wonders how he knows something like that and concludes that it was probably because she’s a girl. Maehara’s a girl expert. “It was just really unexpected, that’s all. I’m sorry. Did I hurt your feelings?”

 

For a womanizer who snuck around with multiple relationships, Maehara is surprisingly straightforward. Nakamura supposes that there has to be some reason of why Isogai was such good friends with him. “It’s fine,” she decides to change the subject. “So what happened to Isogai? You two are usually together aren’t you? I saw him earlier today…”

 

“Ah, he decided to skip club and went home already. It’s not like him, but he said that he was going to go visit someone…” Maehara’s smile towards her is no longer one of a womanizer, but one of a comrade. “So, do you really not want to go hang out? I’ll pay for karaoke and stuff. And if you’re still uncomfortable, I’ll invite some others too. I have another friend who’s in Class E with us. She’s fun to hang around, even if she’s a little too violent at times.”

 

The offer is tempting, but Nakamura isn’t sure if she’s ready to face reality of hanging with the evicted rejects yet. “No, thanks. But invite me out again next semester and I’ll probably say yes.”

 

“It’s a date,” Maehara gives her a flirty wink, his charm fully restored. “Well, I’m going to the soccer club to be outcasted by my former teammates and gossiped about. Wish me luck.”

 

Nakamura wishes that she could have Maehara’s devil-may-care attitude, even if it was only on the surface. “Good luck… and thanks for the talk. I kind of needed it.”

 

“Anything for a pretty girl, milady,” Maehara laughs and they part ways. Nakamura’s cheeks ache from grinning due to weeks of disuse. It was a good kind of pain.

 

Her amount of known comrades had increased from one to three. Even the sunset is starting to look brighter.

 

* * *

 

It’s under the same sunset that she encounters Asano Gakushuu throwing something into the incinerator. He watches whatever he tossed burn into cinders with a look of grim satisfaction in his eyes and a frown on his lips. Avoiding him would be optimal, she thinks as she tiptoes away. Just a few more steps and she would be around the corner of the building –

 

“Nakamura, is it?”

 

 _Damn it_.

 

“Hey, Asano-kun,” she coughs as she tries to cover up her embarrassment. He hadn’t noticed her literally trying to tiptoe away, did he? “I was just going home…”

 

“Hm,” Asano-kun picks his schoolbag up from the ground and slaps it with his palm to knock the dirt and dust and god knows what else off. “Are you going back right now?”

 

Nakamura blinks and an ominous feeling twists at the bottom of her stomach. “Uh, yeah. So then I see you later—”

 

“I’ll walk back with you,” violet eyes meet blue. Nakamura’s mouth can’t spit out a refusal fast enough and she loses the proper timing for it. “Let’s go.”

 

“I, uh…” a billion excuses, ranging from having a guy allergy to suddenly developing a highly contagious illness, whirl in her mind and she confuses herself on which one to use. In the time that it took for her brain to catch up with the situation, Asano-kun had already walked past her and was standing a distance away, clearly waiting for her.

 

“Hurry up,” he says and she stumbles along to follow him.

 

* * *

 

“Silence is golden” is one of Gakushuu’s favored idioms. A lot of the times Gakushuu can only get things done in silence, no distractions or outside interferences. There are few times that he prefers noise, like when people crowd around to praise him to the high heavens, where at least he’ll have the illusion of being better than his father.

 

But even his beloved silence is disturbed as Nakamura Rio constantly lags behind him by a few steps, her shuffling and dragging feet starting to annoy him. He gives an exasperated sigh. “Nakamura Rio, are you going to walk properly or not?”

 

Nakamura’s steps stop and he too stops without turning around. There’s a full five second pause before she speaks to him in a strong voice which cracks at the very end. “Sorry, Asano-kun. A girl can’t help but be wary of a boy’s ulterior motives when he asks her to walk home together, you know?” her bravado both fascinates him and annoys him because half the time he doesn’t understand the point. Why didn’t girls just straight out say whether they were uncomfortable or not? Gakushuu assumes that it’s another concept of women that he’s not supposed to understand (though not for lack of trying). He turns around to face her and watches with little amusement as she flinches as if he were about to jump her. What type of person did she even see him as…?

 

“For the record, I’m walking home with you because I know that your house is near the station I use. And I know _that_ because I’ve memorized all addresses of all the students and faculty in case of emergencies,” he lays out his cards flat on the table and waits for her to make her move. Her expression changes from wariness to surprise, then to disbelief. Before she can even open her mouth, he interrupts her. “Yes, I’m serious. I’ve also memorized each home phone number as well as the phone numbers and addresses of nearby stations, hospitals, police stations, and various other important places. Stop gaping. It’s unsightly.”

 

Nakamura closes her mouth, though she opens it almost immediately after. “Sorry, Asano-kun. I guess I should have expected that from you,” her tone is back to its usual snarky self, coupled with a hint of anger from being insulted. Somehow the defiance makes Gakushuu feel more comfortable. It was better than her cowering, at least.

 

“If you understand, then stop dragging on behind me. It’s irritating, having to slow my pace for you.”

 

Nakamura’s cheeks puff up in rage and she both quickens and lengthens her strides. Gakushuu finds that he’s able to easily keep up due to the height difference between them. She’s almost a full head shorter than he is, so it’s funny, watching her face turn red from the effort. Gakushuu’s competitive side flares and he picks up the pace. Now Nakamura is full out jogging next to him in her efforts to catch up. “Hey!” she protests, though for whatever reason she’s laughing. “No fair!”

 

They stop at the bottom of a hill, which is probably a good thing because Nakamura is panting while clutching her sides and Gakushuu does not want to make a detour while carrying a limp body. “F-Fast enough for you?” she wheezes between each pained gasp. He himself, of course, has barely broken a sweat.

 

He deigns not to answer and simply waits for her to catch her breath. Eventually she wipes her sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and looks at him. “I’m going up the hill. What about you?” she points to where the road branches into a three-way intersection. Gakushuu nods towards the left path where there’s the train station to take him the rest of the way home. “Come to think of it, don’t you usually get driven to school? Why didn’t you today?”

 

“There was something I wanted to get rid of,” Gakushuu says it as offhandedly as possible as memories of a certain redhead and crushed hopes rise to mind.

 

“That thing that you threw into the incinerator?” Nakamura recalls the image with faint clarity. “A book, right?”

 

Gakushuu, again, decides not to answer and merely studies her. Nakamura’s about the right height for an average Japanese girl, but with her blue eyes and bleached hair, she looks more like a foreigner than anything. English being her strong suit didn’t help with that misconception either. Though she was below average in all the other subjects.

 

His lips press together as he ponders whether or not she’d be able to answer the question he’s had for a very long time.

 

* * *

 

Ordinarily when a handsome young man stares at a girl, it’s usually the prelude to some sort of cliché love drama that usually consisted of a rival, a major life-changing event, and/or a close shave with death that ends with the couple confessing their feelings to each other and living happily ever after.

 

At the moment however, Nakamura is more or less considering backing away due to the fact that – scarily enough – Asano Gakushuu’s stare is more pressuring than Akabane’s.

 

 _How could anybody possibly think that this kind of moment is romantic?_ she wonders. More than anything, being stared at so insistently was creepy.

 

“May I ask you something, Nakamura Rio?” Asano-kun finally speaks, though it doesn’t make Nakamura anymore relieved. Somehow when Asano-kun asks a question, it sounds less like a question and more like an order.

 

“What is it?” she decides to humor him, for her own safety if nothing else. Not to mention that her curiosity piques as Asano-kun… does he actually look _embarrassed_? No way.

 

“About you and Akabane… the two of you… aren’t you—”

 

_He’s not about to ask if we’re dating, is he?_

 

“—tired of wasting your potential?”

 

The unexpected question hits Nakamura in the gut like a solid punch. Suddenly reality floods back in, of how she’s a failure in a group of failures and her parents also regard her as a failure and how this guy in front of her, this so-called prodigy genius, stands at the pinnacle of everything Nakamura hates, longs for, _can no longer even reach_. All because she had wanted to be ‘normal’, as he so aptly put it. 

 

Asano-kun seems to sense her distress and goes quiet. Nakamura thinks that she may be having a panic attack. It’s hard to breathe and more than anything, she wants to cry. But her pride won’t let her. It won’t let her strip anything else away.

 

“It’s none of your business, is it?” she finally manages to spit out between clenched teeth. “Whether I’m smart or dumb, isn’t it all up to me in the end? Stop butting into my affairs!”

 

“There’s no need to get so worked up.” How could his voice still be so infuriatingly calm? How? “It was merely a question of interest. I see no reason for the two of you to lower your intelligence, whether it be out of loneliness or laziness.” Smug, arrogant bastard. If he already knew the reasons why, then why bother to ask at all? “Both you and Akabane. I just don’t understand how you two think.”

 

Nakamura wants to scream at him. She wants to scream of how he’s never been alone, always surrounded by adoring fans, and always, always, so goddamn dense to the point where he couldn’t tell the difference between ‘fans’ and ‘friends’. For a genius prodigy, Asano-kun is naïve. He probably couldn’t even tell that every poisonous word that came out of his privileged mouth was killing off the commoners below him.

 

“If you two just actually _try_ —”

 

“Then what?” Nakamura interrupts him, her voice boiling with anger. “We sit down and study. And then what?”

 

Asano-kun looks confused by her question. “Then you become one of the best. Isn’t that worth putting in the effort for?”

 

“Pretty words from _the_ best,” Nakamura’s teeth bite down hard into the soft inside of her bottom lip and it bleeds like her soul. “Then here’s a question for you, Asano-kun. How does it feel being all alone at the top? How does it feel, standing above everyone else and being ousted by them _because_ you’re the best?” The blood is overflowing; the cut must have been deeper than she thought. “What’s it like, not being to understand the struggles of ‘normal’ people?”

 

Asano-kun tilts his head in thought as Nakamura licks at her wounded lip and pride. “I don’t understand,” he finally says. “To stand above the rest is to be the best. To be ousted by others because of my talents is what it means to be special. To not understand the struggles of ‘normal’ people simply means that I am not normal,” he looks at her, his violet eyes unwavering in conviction and confidence. “Those traits define what it means to be Number One.”

 

Jealousy thrums low in her stomach at Asano-kun’s self-assurance. She wishes that she could make up such a compelling argument for why she wanted to be normal, but all it came out as was an insecure girl trying to make herself look more assertive by asking redundant questions and rambling speeches.

 

She wonders what she looks like to Asano-kun.

 

* * *

 

Gakushuu gazes at Nakamura Rio’s bloody lip and wonders if he should offer his handkerchief for it. It’s starting to leave a faint red trace on both her top and bottom lips and it looks as if it wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon.

 

What had compelled her to bite down on it like that, he wondered, in the middle of a casual conversation?

 

Then Nakamura is looking down at her feet and he can’t see her lip anymore, nor her face for that matter. She murmurs his name, so quietly that he could barely catch it. “Asano-kun…”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Even if I try, there’s no real point to it anyway,” Nakamura’s feet begin to move, heavily, and she slowly approaches him, only to brush past him as she starts her trudge up the hill. “Even if I give it my all… well, I don’t know about Akabane, but do you think I’d ever be able to beat you?”

 

Gakushuu blinks at her back. “No,” he says simply and believes. “Neither of you will ever be able to defeat me.”

 

“You see?” It’s funny how expressive a person’s back can be, Gakushuu thinks to himself as he watches Nakamura’s shoulders sag slightly at his words. He had seen sadness, defeat, anger, and frustration in other people’s backs, but the emotion that Nakamura’s back displayed was none of those. Instead, what he saw was what could only be called ‘resignation’. “Even if I tried my best, then there’s no possible way that I can defeat you. If I can’t win in the end, then isn’t it pointless to attempt the impossible? At the very least, I want to have friends whom I can laugh with together over stupid mistakes. Then at least, I won’t be alone.”

 

Gakushuu feels a crease forming between his brows as they furrow in incomprehension. “But aren’t you already alone?”

 

Nakamura’s body jerks as if he’d struck her. Her shoulders hunch over as if she were trying to protect herself from his words. Gakushuu continues on without missing a beat and each grain of truth seems to fall upon Nakamura like a rain of blows.

 

“In our school, results are everything. What matters is how much effort you put in to it in order to not fall into Class E. Even those who are less talented in studying than the rest, if they try hard enough, they can at least achieve a decent enough result to keep to the main building. Well, it’s true that nobody else has the ability or talent to usurp my position as Number One, but…” Gakushuu fully turns towards her, his voice solemn and inquisitive. “Even if you can’t become Number One, is trying your best and still receiving good results such a bad thing?”

 

“Shut up!” Nakamura’s voice cracks as the words burst from her lips. Gakushuu still can’t see her face but her body language tells him all he needs to know. “As I thought, people like you can _never_ understand.”

 

She runs away from him up the hill and he’s left alone at the three-way, still without a real answer to his question. With a mere shrug of his shoulders and a sigh, he walks down the left path towards the train station and puts the situation out of his mind, simply because he does not see the point of dwelling on it.

 

Gakushuu still doesn’t understand, but then like Nakamura said, he doesn’t need to.

 

After all, he has no need to understand the struggles of ‘normal’ people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep in mind that Nakamura does not know Gakushuu. She knows that he's a genius and that he looks down on others so naturally that it's like breathing air. She can't read his mind or understand his thoughts, so of course she'd have her own prejudices and assumptions about him. It's the same the other way around. 
> 
> If we could live in a world where we didn't make baseless judgments on other people, we'd probably be happier. But habits are hard to break and society is hard to overwrite. And in the end, it's the same damn thing over and over again.


	6. First Day of Class E

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nakamura enters Class E and realizes that maybe it's not so bad. At least not with decent people like Isogai and Yukimura-sensei.

Nakamura stares at the derelict shack of a classroom sitting in the forest clearing with apprehensive eyes. Strangely enough, she feels a lot calmer than she thought she would. She had thought that she would have to be dragged into the building, kicking and screaming. Maybe it’s the surprisingly peaceful atmosphere of the surrounding trees. As a city girl, nature had a much quieter feel.

 

 

She feels a tap on her shoulder and Maehara’s grinning face peers at her from over her shoulder. “Hey there,” he greets her with unusual cheer. “Ready for our first days as outcasts?”

 

 

Her laugh comes so much easier than she thought it would and at the same time she understands _why_. Asano’s words _“Aren’t you already alone?”_ ring through her mind, and she can’t help but grin back.

 

 

_I’m not alone._

 

* * *

 

 

 

The people who flow into the room are familiar, some more than others. Fuwa and Hara greet her like old friends – what was she saying? They were old friends – while Nagisa-kun gives her a smile from the opposite side of the room. There are faces that she recognizes but doesn’t know by name, like the rather gloomy looking girl sitting next to Terasaka and his little gang. Nakamura thinks that she has seen her around the school library but she isn’t sure. Chiba-kun is there, sitting quietly at his desk. He gives her a little nod when she waves at him.

 

 

When Isogai and Kataoka Megu walk into the room, everyone goes quiet. It’s a bit of a shocked silence, Nakamura thinks, because her own brain has gone somewhat numb. It’s Maehara that breaks the silence by stepping up and clapping Isogai on the shoulder. “Hey now. It’s only the first day of our new class and you’ve got a girlfriend before you walk through the door? Smooth, man. Always knew you had it in you.”

 

 

And of course Kataoka sputters indignantly while Isogai just sighs and smiles at his childhood friend. “That’s a bit rude to Kataoka-san, don’t you think?”

 

 

“You kidding? You’re a real catch, buddy,” Maehara throws his arm around Isogai’s shoulders and says in conspirator’s whisper _just_ loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “If anything it’s kind of rude to you.”

 

 

“What does _that_ mean?!” Kataoka yelps angrily and starts jabbing her fingers at Maehara. The whole class dissolves in laughter and Nakamura laughs with them, half out of amazement of Maehara’s mood-making abilities. Suddenly Isogai and Kataoka are just parts of the class and not two sore thumbs. 

 

 

“It’s pretty noisy in here!” a cheerful female voice comes from outside of the room. “I’m glad to see that you’re all in such high spirits!” A woman with short black hair and a rather impressive rack walks into the room with a pile of books in her arms. “Good morning everyone!” Yukimura-sensei practically trills and suddenly happiness feels infectious.

 

 

“Morning!” most of the class says back, minus Terasaka and his gang and few other students (Chiba-kun and a pretty girl with long reddish hair who Nakamura didn’t know). Everyone shuffles back to their assigned seats and look up at their teacher expectantly.

 

 

“Well then, welcome to your new class! I’m quite excited to get to know all of you,” Nakamura hears Terasaka give a loud snorting sound. Perhaps Yukimura-sensei chose to ignore it because she plowed on. “I promise you all that we’re going to have a fun and exciting school year!” Terasaka and even his two cronies start to snicker in the background and it’s kind of hard to miss. Yukimura-sensei must have thought so too, because she looks at them, all brightness and genuine smiles, and asks, “Yes, Terasaka-kun?”

 

 

“That’s a whole load of crap that you’re dumping on us,” Terasaka sneers and the tension in the classroom tangibly heightens. “You say that we’ll have a fun year? Are you kidding me? We’re the lowest of the low! We’re the trash of society? And you expect us to actually have _fun_?”

 

 

Reality suddenly sinks in and Nakamura feels her mood drop, along with everyone else’s in the class. Suddenly nobody can look at their radiant teacher and all instead vouch to stare at their desk or out the window or at their hands. Terasaka settles back with a satisfied huff of making everyone remember their place, before Yukimura-sensei speaks with her soft voice.

 

 

“I do,” and eyes snap back up at her. “I think that all of you have your own potentials and talents. It’s true that Kunugigaoka Middle puts an emphasis on well-rounded students, but they also shove other talents in the background,” her eyes drift over to Sugaya. “Talent for art, for example.”

 

 

Sugaya blinks and he shrinks a little in his seat as he feels his classmates’ eyes on him. “Uh, thanks,” he mutters.

 

 

“Kunugigaoka is not the whole world, my students,” Yukimura-sensei lips curl into a gentle smile. Nakamura suddenly feels warmer on the inside, like she had drunk a cup of soothing green tea. “What they reject, the rest of the world will accept. None of you are failures. And in my classes, I’ll do my best to prove it to you.”

 

 

“Good luck,” mutters Terasaka. He makes to stand up and his chair clatters noisily backwards. “You happy-go-lucky morons will get the taste of reality soon enough!”

 

 

He stomps out of the classroom with his cronies hot on his heels. “Ah! Wait!” Yukimura-sensei cries and runs to the door. “Hey! Terasaka-kun! Muramatsu-kun! Yoshida-kun!” she sighs in disappointment, but she quickly fixes her smile back in place as she tries to show a confident front to the class. “They’ll come back,” she assures them, but Nakamura catches the little quiver in her voice.

 

 

How many times has this happened to her? Nakamura can’t help but wonder.

 

* * *

 

 

After the first day of classes, Nakamura nearly gets trampled as all of her new classmates all hurry outside, as if evacuating a burning building. No one could bear staying inside for longer than necessary, she knows. Not when the atmosphere was still so thick and heavy that a knife would be able to cut through it.

 

 

Nagisa-kun has vacated as quickly as the rest, leaving just Nakamura and Yukimura-sensei in the room. She watches their teacher quietly pack her bags and check her watch. “Going somewhere, Yukimura-sensei?” she asks before she can stop herself.

 

 

“Hm? Oh, Nakamura-san. I was just thinking that I should go visit Akabane-kun,” Yukimura-sensei smiles brightly. “He must be terribly lonely to be at home on the first day of school. I just thought I’d drop by and talk with him about this semester’s curriculum. That way he can at least study at home so he’ll be all caught up when he comes back.”  

 

 

Nakamura stares at her. “Yukimura-sensei…” she wonders how to put this as delicately as possible. “Um… Do you know _anything_ about Akabane? At all?” _Like how he’s the most terrifying adolescent you may ever meet?_

 

 

“I’ve heard the stories,” Yukimura-sensei says all too cheerfully as she swings her bag over her shoulder and tucks her iPad under her arm. “That’s why I want to go talk to him.”

 

 

“Um…” Nakamura remembers the paralyzing glare Akabane had given her the last day she had saw him. How it had rooted her to the ground and made her hair stand on end. “That might not be a good idea. He’s not very…” her mind flashes back to the wrecked office of Oono-sensei. “Very… receptive to teachers, I think.”

 

 

“Oh, do you know him well?” Yukimura-sensei asks, looking interested. A nod escapes before Nakamura can stop herself. “Then why don’t you come along with me? I’m sure he’d be glad to see a friend.”

 

 

Her jaw drops open and she stutters. “I, uh, I mean, I’ve got some errands to do for my parents. I’d _love_ to, but, uh,” she bites down onto her lip. “I can’t. Sorry.”

 

 

“Oh, that’s fine,” Yukimura-sensei smiles at her and Nakamura feels guilty as sin. “Then maybe another time. I plan to visit him as much as I can. Make sure to go home safely, okay?”

 

 

“Okay,” Nakamura whispers as she watches their teacher leave the room with a gaily wave. She feels ridiculous standing alone in an empty, near abandoned-looking classroom, but she doesn’t want to follow Yukimura-sensei either.

 

 

So she waits five more minutes, shuffling her shoes because there was no cellphone reception, before finally leaving the room. Nakamura ensures that there’s no one in sight before she begins her long trek down the mountain towards the main building of the school. Most of the students are preoccupied with extracurricular clubs, so she’s sure that nobody notices her as she quietly sneaks through the grounds without making eye contact with anybody.

 

 

So when she feels a hand on her shoulder, she panics by freezing in place.

 

 

“Er… Nakamura-san? Are you okay?”

 

 

All the breath she had been holding whooshes out at once in pure relief at the familiar voice. She turns to smile at Isogai, who pretty much blinds her with his sparkly pearly whites. “Hey, Isogai-kun. Sorry about that.”

 

 

“You can just call me Isogai,” he smiles. “Are you walking back home? I’ll escort you.”

 

 

“Whoa! Kind of bold, aren’t you Isogai?” she teases and Isogai flushes lightly. “That being said, why are you even still here? Didn’t everyone else leave like a while ago?”

 

 

“Ahh, I kind of got caught,” Isogai rubs that back of his head sheepishly. “A couple girls from the main building stopped me.”

 

 

Nakamura was about to ask why when her eyes drift to Isogai’s bag and notice a few pink envelopes sticking out. “Ooooo,” she says playfully. “Looks like you’re still popular among the pretty young ladies of this school.”

 

 

“Why are you talking like an old man?” a bead of sweat runs down Isogai’s face. “Well, I’m grateful for their feelings at least, but I’m afraid I just don’t have the time for this sort of thing right now,” he scratches at his cheek. “I can’t say that I’m not flattered at least.”

 

 

Nakamura looks back down at the envelopes, pondering. “Say, Isogai, why _is_ someone like you in Class E? You’re pretty much a perfect student, so what could you have even done?”

 

 

“… I broke some of the school rules,” Isogai’s sparkles turn melancholy and suddenly even Nakamura starts to feel blue. “Since my dad died during our first year of middle school, finances in the family have been really rough, especially since I have a little brother and sister who are both in a private elementary school. I got a part-time job after school to help pay for the bills, but… well, I got caught,” he smiles at her, though his eyes still look sad. “So here I am.”

 

 

“That’s so stupid!” Nakamura bursts out. “You were trying to help out your family! What’s wrong with that?!”

 

 

“That’s why I said to the Chairman too, though not in so many words…” his smile turns sheepish. “He said that a student’s foremost duty was to study. The ‘no part-time job’ rule was established so that students wouldn’t overwork themselves trying to keep up with studies and clubs.

 

 

“Stupid!” Nakamura mutters again.

 

 

“I’m sure that the Chairman is just caring about the students in his own way,” Isogai assures her, though that just makes Nakamura even angrier.

 

 

“Don’t defend him! You don’t have to be _that_ good of a person!” she exclaims, whirling around and stamping her foot in righteous fury. They’re well outside of school grounds now and deeper into downtown. Several passerby give her an odd look, but she’s so furious for Isogai’s sake that she can’t bring herself to care. “You were doing the right thing! Get angry at him!”

 

 

Isogai looks visibly puzzled and Nakamura regrets blurting that out. Isogai didn’t look to have a single angry bone in his body. It was like the concept itself was completely foreign to him.

 

 

“Look…” she sighs. “Don’t you feel just a little bit miffed at the fact that you were thrown into Class E for helping your family out? Shouldn’t you feel like it’s just a bit unfair?”

 

 

“… Well, it’s my own fault in the first place. I should have listened to Akabane…”

 

 

Nakamura blinks because Isogai was mumbling and she thinks she heard a familiar name. “What?”

 

 

“Nothing,” Isogai’s face is oddly pink for some reason. “The sun’s about to set. Let’s get you home.”

 

 

Isogai determinedly steers their conversation onto everyday mundane topics and Nakamura knows well enough when to let things go. That doesn’t stop her from calling him an idiot on her doorstep though.

 

 

“I’m well aware,” Isogai laughs and Nakamura very badly wants to hug him, but not in a romantic way. More like in a “protect-this-precious-smiling-child” way. She doesn’t though, because she knows it would probably be interpreted wrongly (because puberty was a bitch and didn’t let girls hug boys without motives at this age). Instead she grips his shoulder and gives it an affectionate squeeze, similar to what Maehara might do. “See you tomorrow, Nakamura-san.”

 

 

“If I get to call you Isogai, then you _have_ to call me Nakamura. No honorifics.”

 

 

“If you say so. Then see you tomorrow, Nakamura.”

 

 

She smiles and says goodbye and the moment Isogai is out of sight she crouches in place, face in her hands.

 

 

“I couldn’t have fallen for a normal, nice guy like that,” she mutters. “No, I _had_ to fall for the violent one. Uggggh.”

 

 

She curses herself for following the “jerk guy instead of nice guy shoujo manga stereotype” before heading back inside to take a shower and prep for her second day in Class E.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Number 1 thing that I hated about puberty - hugging my guy friends became really awkward for reasons that neither of us could explain. It was like some sort of 'shame switch' got flipped on the moment we got into middle school. It could have just been peer pressure, but I'm pretty sure that puberty had a lot to do with it.


	7. Crescent Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when Nakamura begins to feel like her life is truly over, the moon explodes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoof, it's been a while since I've updated this story. I hope there are still readers for this...

Just when Nakamura thinks that maybe her life had hit rock bottom, time and time again she’s proven wrong.

 

Weirdly enough, Class E is comfortable enough for her to get to know some of the most unlikely people. Isogai and Maehara, who she barely ever talked to even when they were in the same class in their first year, ended up as two of her favorite people. Terasaka, while he was dumb and brutish, often lent her a sympathetic ear whenever she wanted to complain about something, namely adults. She also found that she didn’t mind Okajima – the school pervert and the most likely to be arrested in the future for public indecency – whenever he started to gush about erotic topics (whenever he actually _did_ something perverted, however, was a different story, because talk was one thing and action another).

 

Then there were the people she was already sort-of friends with that end up being very close to her. Fuwa and Hara are now her two best friends and she has no idea why she found them annoying in the beginning (though a certain redhead not being there might have something to do with it). Chiba started to lend her a couple CDs and one time played a song for her on his electric guitar (she would have teased him about serenading her but Chiba is so darn mature that he probably would have brushed it off easily). She even found Nagisa, whose delicate, feminine features just stoked the sadistic fires of her soul, to be incredibly sweet and patient. He was even more deeply understanding of Nakamura’s complaints about her parents than Terasaka.

 

Maybe they were all failures, but they were failures comfortable in each other’s presence.

 

But just because she had friends that she could call comrades-in-arms didn’t mean that her school life was any easier. Every single time she was forced to walk through the main building’s grounds, she could feel the judging eyes and hear the sardonic whispers and giggles as she passed the other students by. Even her old teachers, the ones who had begged her to study harder so that she wouldn’t be dropped into Class E, now look at each other with knowing glances that clearly screamed: _I knew she was a bad egg. She never had a chance. What a disappointment_.

 

Yukimura-sensei is a very kind and gentle woman, but as a teacher she’s still lacking. Her enthusiasm turns off her students on a bad day and barely encourages them on a good day. Nakamura thinks that if their teacher was some sort of supersonic genius, then maybe her studies would come easier. But Yukimura-sensei is just a single teacher who has to take care of all the subjects by herself and she’s not a true master of any of them – except perhaps science, but just one subject was not enough to raise their grades enough to get back into the main building.

 

She quietly laughs at herself as she walks home alone on a rainy day, her bag covering her head because she didn’t have an umbrella. _I actually want to go back to the main building and be smart again_ , she thinks to herself, sardonically amused. _How insipid._

 

There’s a café with an awning covering some outside tables, keeping their occupants dry from the rain. She recognizes, with a sinking heart, five female students from the main building sitting at the table meant for six. They have books and notes all strewn about, and they all have their heads together, talking in low voices over which answer correct. She hears one girl offering to host a sleepover so that they could study more tonight, and another girl offering to bring games for study breaks.

 

The paradox of her entire situation hits her hard as she passes them. The paradox that she’s out in the rain, alone, cold, and feeling stupid, while those smart girls were together, happily discussing math problems and chatting about later plans. The one empty seat at the table openly mocks her and she tries to keep her head low and unnoticeable. Her bag is soaking wet and her books inside are likely nothing more than pulp by now.

 

How had she ended up like this? Why was the thing she desired brought about by the thing that had alienated her in the first place?

 

Her steps slow as she wonders why she didn’t ask Hara or Fuwa to walk home together. She wonders why they didn’t ask her to walk home together. She wonders if the friendships among her classmates were really ‘friendships’, or bonds forged by desperate need for companionship, when in reality they didn’t want anything to do with each other.

 

Because they were all failures, and looking at each other was like looking in a mirror.

 

“Hey, isn’t that Nakamura Rio?”

 

“Why is she just standing there?”

 

“Class E is really full of weirdoes, huh?”

 

Nakamura jolts and starts to run, but slips in a puddle and falls to the ground. Her hands and knees sting and her bag almost falls into the road. All she can hear, over the pounding of blood in her ears, is the derisive laughter of the girls behind her.

 

She scoops up her useless bag and keeps running. If she’s crying, it’s hard to tell with the rain.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Nakamura idly watches as Yukimura-sensei happily hums to herself as she cheerfully pulls a pencil from her pencil case. She looks even more chipper than usual, to the point where everyone else in the class notices.

 

 

“You seem to be in a good mood lately, Yukimura-sensei,” Kurahashi pips up.

 

“Eh?” Yukimura-sensei flinches. It seems that she didn’t even realize how cheerful she was being.

 

“Did something good happen?” Kimura asks and Yukimura scratches her head sheepishly as she clearly tries to come up with a roundabout answer.

 

“Heh heh,” Maehara has one hand on his chin, the other raised in a thumbs-up. “I can see it. The touch of a man.”

 

The entire class explodes and Nakamura laughs and claps along with her classmates. Yukimura-sensei’s face is almost entirely red. “That’s right!” hooted Okajima. “You put something that looked like a present in your bag a moment ago!”

 

“Hey, for real?!” Nakamura can’t resist and she stands up to catcall. “The class just began, and things are already getting heated up!”

 

Yukimura-sensei fumbles for the attendance book and clears her throat. Her blush refuses to go down. “Stop saying stupid things and let’s begin roll call,” she gives a flustered cough as she clearly tries to settle herself down. “Akabane-kun!”

 

The entire class goes quiet as all eyes direct themselves to the seat where the infamous redhead should have been seated, before traveling down to their individual desks. Nakamura hears Yukimura-sensei give a light gasp as she realizes her mistake. “… Sorry. That’s right. He’s suspended.”

 

No one can look at her or each other in the eye. “It’s fine,” Okajima says, eyes turned up towards the ceiling and a tight smile on his face. “Such things are normal for this place, after all.”

 

Nakamura glances up just in time to see a foreign look on their teacher’s face. No, she realizes. It’s simply foreign because she’s never seen that particular expression on her face before. Melancholy.

 

“… I will go to his house to check on things later today. Next, Isogai-kun!”

 

“… Present,” even Isogai looks sad from Nakamura’s view of his back. His antenna droop even more at the mention of their missing classmate.

 

Nakamura realizes that she misses Akabane, but not enough to go visit him together with Yukimura-sensei. She wonders if Nagisa had already gone.

 

She glances at him next to her and, judging from the look in his eyes, decides that he definitely hasn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s spring break, right before the new semester of her official start as a third year, when Nakamura hears a distinct sonic boom while she’s taking a bath in the evening. She opens her eyes, listens, then sinks back down, thinking that maybe it was just her imagination or the water in her ears.

 

The bathtub suddenly quakes and she clings to the edges in shock as a rumble passes through the earth. She hears her parents screaming from downstairs and she bolts out of the bathroom, barely remembering to grab a towel, to slide across the floors and down the stairs. Her parents are at the window, yelling and pointing at something she can’t see.

 

She runs to them and looks out the window.

 

A crescent moon, like a mischievous grin, smiles down at her and sends her hair standing on end.

 

* * *

 

 

Fuwa calls her and she calls Hara and between them they fill up a crazy text log of Fuwa’s theories of why the moon suddenly blew up. Hara is confused because the moon blowing up should have been the end of the world with nothing to control the oceans anymore. Nakamura corrects her, saying that the moon was still there, but smaller so the gravitational pull must have become weaker.

 

To her surprise, several others in her class also contact her, checking on her. Nagisa is one of them. Isogai – who is most likely with Maehara – sends out a group text to the entire class, asking if they were okay. Kurahashi sends back smiley emoji by the dozen. Chiba and Hayami Rinka both send back a simple, “Yes.”

 

Nakamura types in “What happened?” with a shock emoji, though she doesn’t expect a concrete answer. Her parents have turned on the TV and she idly glances up in time to see a news report about a local research center than had just collapsed on itself, about a full fifteen minutes after the moon blew up.

 

The reporter looks genuinely upset as she reports the tragedy, which Nakamura had to give her props for. _“This incident is treated as a separate incident by the police, however it is possible that the sudden appearance of a crescent moon is – wait! Someone is coming out!”_

 

The cameras – and Nakamura’s parents – lean in and zooms in enough to see a single girl wearing a school uniform clambering out of the rubble. Nakamura squints. It was hard to tell with the light, but she looked unhurt.

 

The reporters start running in and the girl sprints away with surprising speed. The cameras give chase too, but the girl disappears and the panting of exhausted runners comes over the microphone.

 

_Poor kid_ , Nakamura thinks sympathetically. Somehow reporters didn’t get that some people don’t immediately want to be interrogated after a life-and-death experience. _Glad that she managed to escape though._

 

Her phone buzzes and she looks back down to see others replying to the text message and walks off to the kitchen, leaving whatever other possible hints to her future unseen.

 

* * *

 

 

After spring break ends and they’re reunited again, Nakamura walks into class to a cheery face that somehow seems a bit familiar.

 

“Hi! My name is Kayano Kaede!” says the transfer student with a bright smile rivaling Kurahashi’s. “I’m a transfer student. It’s nice to meet you!”

 

She’s already next to Nagisa’s desk when Nakamura comes in that morning – and somehow Nagisa now has the same hairstyle as her – and it seems that they’ve already become fast friends. Nagisa keeps touching the skin at the back of his neck as if not believing that it was really there. It’s probably so different to have his neck bared all the time.

 

Nakamura wants to ask why a transfer student was immediately put in Class E, but she herself and nobody else seems to be comfortable with asking. And, if Nakamura is being totally honest, she doesn’t feel much interest in asking either. Just another failure put in the class with them. Someone to play friendly with, but not really care about. The only one who seems genuinely perplexed by her appearance is the movie buff Mimura Kouki, who continuously squints at her as if trying to recognize her from somewhere.

 

Kayano is cheerful as she chats away with Nagisa. Nakamura glances around when the entire class is present and realizes that they are all thinking the same thing.

 

_She will learn_.

 

But everyone is friendly towards her because it’s hard not to be friendly back to such a cute face. Within the ten minutes before class starts, they learn that Kayano Kaede loves pudding, éclairs, and sweets in general. She lives about twenty minutes away and takes the train to school, but since she’s an early riser she sometimes walks on sunny days and walks back home while window shopping downtown. Her best subject is Japanese but the others are below average. Nobody says it, but everybody’s amazed that the Chairman even let her into the school.

 

The door opens and everyone settles down, expecting Yukimura-sensei to come in with her usual cheery “Good morning!” Instead, however, a man walks in. He’s handsome and tall and Nakamura wants to wolf-whistle but he has a stern look on his face that makes her think twice. Kurahashi Hinano sits up a bit straighter in her seat, her eyes sparkling.

 

“Good morning,” the man pauses as several hands shoot up. “Hands down please. I know that you must have a lot of questions. I will say this now: I am not your new teacher.” Nakamura watches as Kurahashi slumps back down a little. “Now, I need you to keep calm and listen to me. I understand how ridiculous this sounds, but…”

 

Suddenly something yellow and huge streaks into the room and stands at the teacher’s podium with wriggling tentacles in full display. Everybody literally freezes in place as they try to process the sight they see before them.

 

Nakamura blinks. Whatever this thing was had a very round head and stood over seven feet tall with a shit-eating grin and two beady eyes. Tentacles – they could only be tentacles, right? – spilled out from under its clothes and it surveyed the class, meeting every student in the eye and not caring if they shrunk away. Nakamura refuses to move her gaze, however, and she sees something that might have been approval flicker in its eyes.

 

The thing clears its throat and says in a surprisingly low and calm voice, “Nice to meet you. I’m the one who blew up the moon. I also plan to blow up the Earth next year. Seeing as I’ve become your homeroom teacher, I look forward to working with you.”

 

_Let us retort in five or six places!_ Nakamura thinks, and she’s sure the entire class is thinking the same.

 

The tall man steps forward and says with a heavy voice, “I’m Karasuma, from the Ministry of Defense. First of all, I would like you to understand that what I am about to say is classified government information,” he glances over at the yellow octopus. “Now, cutting straight to the point. I want you to kill this monster!”

 

Nakamura feels the eyes bug out of her head. Nagisa and Kayano are exchanging surprised glances next to her.

 

The yellow octopus’s grin grows wider and Nakamura shivers as she thinks of the crescent moon.

 

* * *

 

The moon blowing up was not enough to send the Asano family into a panicked frenzy. Asano Gakushuu was in his room at the time, headphones in, math exercise book with a gaudy orange and blue cover opened in front of him, when he feels the tremble in the earth. His teacup rattles and threatens to slosh all over his notes.

 

It’s over as soon as it began and his father opens the door, for once looking mildly concerned.

 

“Earthquake?” Gakushuu pulls out one earbud to ask. He hasn’t been keeping up with earthquake forecast of late, but he’s sure that one wasn’t supposed to be today. His father merely points to his window, which had the blinds closed.

 

Gakushuu, now more concerned due to his father’s silence, rises from his desk to peek through the blinds. He sees nothing unusual in the street… till he notices that the few people outside at his hour were pointing up to the sky.

 

His own gaze is drawn upwards and his mouth falls open at the sight of the crescent, fragmented moon. His mind sets awhirl with irrational explanations that could only come from panic. An attack from a foreign country? A foreign planet? Certainly the latter was plausible, and yet…

 

Then he feels the Chairman’s gaze and wonders if this is yet another test. Somehow, the idea of Asano Gakuhou blowing up the moon for the sake of a lesson isn’t so farfetched.

 

“… Interesting,” he merely chooses to comment before stepping away from the window, making sure that his face is perfectly composed before he turns around. “You didn’t have something to do with this, did you?”

 

“What benefit does this bring to me, Asano-kun?” the Chairman counters. “I was merely curious of what conclusions you could draw from this.”

 

“Do you know then? What caused this?” Gakushuu curses himself quietly. Answering a question with a question was merely a self-defense reflex to avoid appearing ignorant. A lesson that the Chairman had taught him long ago.

 

“I’m afraid that I do not have a concrete answer, but I do have several theories as to what could have caused this. I’m disappointed that you have reached no conclusions of your own.”

 

The answer is, while not out of character for the ever confident Chairman, oddly out of place. Gakushuu feels his forehead furrow in confusion. There was no lecture, no profound sense of frustration. No actual pressure. The Chairman merely stood there for a few more moments before merely shrugging his shoulders. “I’ll leave you to your studies then. If you ever wish to surpass me, you’ll certainly have to work on both your academics, and imagination.”

 

Gakushuu resists the impulse to fling his textbook into that stupidly smug face and lets the Chairman leave unscathed. The sulky frown that forms on his lips remains until he sits down at his desk and reaches for a pencil… only to reach a conclusion even more ridiculous than aliens blowing up the moon.

 

_Was he… concerned for my safety?_

 

Gakushuu dismisses the idea as ludicrous and moves to switch on the flat screen TV in his room. News reports, scientific theories, and various other forms of media filter through his ears as he easily picks out the facts from the nonsense. NASA camera footage shows that the blown off portions of the moon were orbiting the crescent remains, much like the rings around Saturn. Ah, perhaps _that_ was why the tides hadn’t drastically changed. Island nations like Japan were far more likely to be in danger if such things occurred.

 

His cellphone buzzes and Ren’s name lights up the screen. Ren has sent a text, asking if he was okay, that he himself was fine, and that there was minimal danger to the areas around them, and would this affect any school events that he would have to know about as Secretary to the Student Council?

 

Gakushuu can’t repress a smile. Trust Ren to still manage to keep his composure, even with a sign heralding the end of the world.

 

He texts back that no, this would not affect anything that had to do with the school. After all, how could the moon blowing up affect Kunugigaoka Middle School? Absurd.

 

He glances up in time to see a news report about a collapsed research center and frowns. No other building had collapsed because of the earthquake-like tremor, so why had this one? Were they somehow connected? He doesn’t remember that facility being under his father’s jurisdiction either, so perhaps Chairman Asano truly had nothing to do with this…

 

He flicks off the TV and returns to his desk and his homework, fitting in his earbuds and switching to his classical music list as he continued his studies.

 

After all, it’s not like either of these incidents would affect his academic life in any way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The time comes when there is a life-changing event. The thing about these events is that some of them creep into your life unsuspected, unnoticed, and even now the very beginning of the event may have escaped your notice.
> 
> Was there ever a time that you think back upon, and perhaps realized that it was more significant than you remembered?

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I really do think that NakamuraxKarma would be a good pair. 
> 
> Alas, I don't know if they're meant to be.


End file.
